


The Library

by JamesJohnEye



Series: Things unattempted yet (in prose or rhyme) [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Meetings, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, Safe Haven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-04-13 12:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4521318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamesJohnEye/pseuds/JamesJohnEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The survivors stumble upon an overrun town. They go in to find food and water, but instead find a green-eyed stranger on top of a bookcase.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A little old for that

* * *

 

 

The town is small enough to not be on any road signs so when it suddenly appears around the corner, no-one can really believe it. The group, sullen and silent from the long walk, grinds to a halt. Carl, who’d been walking with his head bowed due to exhaustion, thirst and despair, runs straight into his father’s back. When he peeks around Rick’s frame, his eyes grow wide.

‘No way,’ he breathes as he takes in the first scattered buildings of the town.

Daryl, who’d been walking ahead of the group, turns to look at their leader. Sweat clings to his forehead and runs down his neck where it soaks the collar of his sleeveless shirt. Winter had ended a few weeks prior and the sun is now beating down on them. Maybe they’d gotten used to the bitter cold and now thought any sunshine to be hot and stifling, or maybe the world had forgotten all about the gentle weather which spring always promised and only now failed to deliver.

The hunter is grateful for the change of seasons. Streams are no longer frozen over and the woods begin to fill with game once more. Even though snow made tracking child’s play, the white substance made sneaking up on anything nearly impossible. No matter how careful his tread was, snow always crunched beneath his heels, betraying his position to any wildlife.

Their resources have dwindled down to almost nothing. Their rations barely sustain Carl and Judith, let alone grown men and women. Hunger and thirst has been clawing at them for days now. Strength has started to leave their bodies, bleeding out of it through sweat and tears, leaving them weak and near delirious. The few rabbits and squirrels Daryl manages to shoot barely take the edge off it but Rick doesn’t want him wandering around the forest by himself for longer than strictly necessary, in case something happens to the group. The lack of hunting leaves the group even more vulnerable than Daryl’s absence would have done but by now it doesn’t matter anymore. They’re weak.

The small town arises on the horizon like a goddamn miracle.

Baby Judith is quickly passed to her brother and Rick walks over to the archer to discuss this new phenomenon before them. Glenn and Carol follow suit, leaving the others to their excited speculations of what the small town could mean for them.

Rick holds out his hand for the large gun Carol carries over her shoulder and uses the scope to get a better look at the place. With a sigh, he lowers it seconds later.

‘Shit,’ he murmurs, taking another look. ‘It’s overrun.’

Glenn lets his head hang for a moment, ‘okay, but there still might be food. Water. Medicine.’

‘We can’t risk going in there,’ Rick says. ‘We’re not strong right now. There are walkers everywhere. We don’t know what else is out there.’

Daryl looks at his feet to avoid eye contact, scuffing his shoes on the pavement while listening to the conversation. He understands where Rick is coming from, of course. They’re all dehydrated and hungry, some barely able to drag their feet forward. They need supplies but Terminus still haunts them. The memory of kneeling on that concrete floor, baring his neck, of hearing Glenn draw in a sharp breath as someone prepared to swing the bat. The conviction that he was going to die. It still lingers in his bones, curls around his spine, claws at his skin at night.

There are nights he wakes up screaming, with Rick’s hand pressed over his mouth in an attempt to keep him quiet, his whole body trashing in panic until his mind catches up to him and manages to shake off the memories.

‘We need the supplies,’ Glenn urges, looking back at the group. ‘Rick, we need food. Water.’

‘We’ll set up camp. Daryl can get us a few squirrels, maybe we can find a creek or something… Look,’ Rick says when Glenn rubs his hands over his face in near-desperation. ‘It’s _not safe._ ’

‘And walking the road while suffering from dehydration and starvation is? Look at Carl, man, he can barely walk! What happens if we run into a herd now? What happens if we can’t even outrun them anymore?’

Rick’s jaw tightens at the mention of Carl, but he swallows his words and glances at Daryl, silently asking his opinion.

The hunter looks at him through his hair, all shifty eyes and wary posture. ‘He’s right, man,’ he mutters, hand moving to grab the band of his crossbow like he needs something to hold onto. ‘I can get us some squirrels fine, but that ain’t going to cut it. We should make a run into that town, pick it clean. Just a small group, in an’ out.’

Rick shifts his weight uncomfortably, glancing at their surroundings before turning back to his people, ‘all right, a small group then. The rest can make a camp in the woods, maybe find a stream or water source. We’ll just go in, grab anything we can use and get the hell out of there.’

‘Who do you want to send?’ Carol asks before raising her water bottle to her lips and taking a careful sip.

Daryl watches the liquid shift inside the plastic. Dehydration has caused his lips to split, with blood seeping into his mouth occasionally, leaving the taste of metal on his tongue. His mouth is as dry as his mother’s thanksgiving turkey used to be. Even his legs feel funny.

‘I’ll go,’ Rick answers, ‘with Daryl, Michonne, Glenn, maybe Maggie. You can take the others into the woods, get them some place safe. Try to find water. Set some traps.’

‘Sure,’ she smiles as he walks away to say goodbye to his son and daughter. Glenn follows him with hunched shoulders, already thinking of the quickest way in and out of the unfamiliar town. ‘Here,’ Carol holds out the bottle of water to Daryl. ‘You need to drink something.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re not. You haven’t drunk anything all day.’

Daryl narrows his eyes, ‘what are you, my mother? I said I’m fine.’

‘Daryl.’

He glares at her and then jerks one of his shoulders in a half-shrug, not meeting her eye, ‘there’s not much left. I’ll be all right.’

‘Just a sip then,’ Carol says softly, and then with a flirty look; ‘for me.’

With a scoff, he grabs the bottle and takes a sip, just enough to wet his tongue, before pushing the bottle back into her hands, ‘happy now?’ he snipes before stalking back towards the group, leaving Carol behind with a fond smile on her face.

 

 

They tell themselves that the first house is just bad luck. All the cupboards are left wide open, revealing empty shelves and dusty drawers. There’s nothing that they can use. All the batteries have been pulled from their devices, there are no guns, no ammo and there’s certainly not any food anywhere in the house.

It used to belong to a young couple. Their pictures are fading on the walls. Daryl slowly trudges up the staircase to check the rooms there while the others guard the lower floor. His legs feel heavy, his feet less sure with every step he climbs. The first room is a large bedroom which is never promising. He checks the closet, the nightstands and then drops to his knees to look under the bed. There’s nothing but old shoes, kicked aside, and dust. When he gets up again, the room spins around him for a couple of seconds. He leans on the bed and breathes through his nose until it passes.

The bathroom is cleared in a manner of seconds. He stuffs a tube of toothpaste into his bag and a bottle of mouthwash. For a moment he thinks about whether it would be safe to drink. It takes more willpower than he would like to admit to not screw the bottle open and try.

His legs feel all wrong when he walks towards the last room. The door is closed but not locked. He raises his crossbow, his arms trembling as he presses it against his cheek before leaning forward to open the door. With a sigh, he lowers the weapon again, grateful for the loss of weight. The room is entirely empty. It’s just bare floorboards and white walls.

He stands on the threshold, swaying a little on the spot. Out of habit, he wipes his forehead with the palm of his hand but is surprised to find it dry now. He isn’t sweating anymore, though the temperature hasn’t changed.

A trembling hand finds the door, holding himself up. His fingers slide over a cut out made of wood, painted a dusty pink. _Kelly_. She had a name before she was even born, Daryl thinks hazily. What is the point of that?

‘Daryl? Are you okay?’

The hunter turns to find Glenn at the top of the stairs, eyebrows raised slightly. He looks like shit, though Daryl probably doesn’t look any better. Worse, maybe, since he refuses to take his share of the last provisions.

‘Fine,’ he growls, pushing himself away from the empty room. ‘’s nothing here.’

‘Rick wants to split up and check the other houses, maybe some of the stores on the main road,’ Glenn tells him in a hushed whisper. ‘Look, I say we get out of here. This place was picked clean, someone already raided this town. What are the chances that they missed a cupboard, a shelve, an entire house? We’re wasting time, Daryl.’

‘’s got to be something.’

‘What if there isn’t?’

‘Look,’ Daryl rounds on his friend, getting in his face. ‘You’re the one who wanted to do this in the first place, so don’t climb up my arsehole when it turns out to be a shit plan! We’re here now. Best finish it, and finish fast so we can go and _stop wasting time_.’ He turns on his heels and stomps down the stairs, making more noise than he probably should. Maggie, who’d been guarding the hallway shoots him a strange look but he ignores it, brushing past her to storm out of the house.

Michonne is leaning against the fence, eyes on the walkers ahead. There are a few corpses scattered around her, all with clean-cut skulls. Rick is standing beside her. He looks up when Daryl approaches.

‘Anything?’

‘No, nothing in there, ‘s robbed clean. Maybe there’s something in the other places.’

Rick sighs and runs a hand over his beard, scratching at his chin. ‘Yeah, maybe. We can try. Glenn and Maggie can take the stores on the main road. Michonne and I can take the outer houses. We need to move fast, there are walkers everywhere. You good to go on your own?’

‘Better on my own,’ Daryl nods, but they all know it’s not really true. Sure, with tracking it’s better to be on his own so others don’t muck up the trail or make too much noise, but this isn’t tracking. And there’s no-one to have his back this way but he tilts his chin higher in defiance, too tired and desperate for supplies to care about his own safety.

‘Maybe you can take the other side of the main road,’ Glenn pipes up, eyeing his friend warily. ‘There are a couple of bars, restaurants. A big building too, probably a library or school or something.’

‘A library?’ Rick echoes disbelievingly.

‘First rule of scavenging,’ Glenn reminds him with a wry smile. ‘Nothing left that isn’t hidden. Who’d think to rob a library or school? But there might be a canteen or something. We have to try. We need to find something. Anything.’

‘Fine,’ Daryl spits out, hitching his bow higher. ‘Let’s go.’

‘We’re meeting back here,’ Rick says, ‘before dusk. Be careful,’ he stresses. ‘All of you.’

 

The library is bigger than any Daryl has ever seen.

Sprawling marble floors lead him from the large oaken entrance doors to the main hall, which could have fitted his entire childhood home inside it, thrice over. Chandeliers hang from high ceilings and even though they are covered in dust and cobwebs, they still manage to catch the sunlight cast in through large glass-in-lead windows. The resulting color display on the walls is breathtakingly beautiful. It reminds him of a kaleidoscope, one his brother had won for him on a fair once, a long time ago. He’d played with it while lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling through countless colors.

Hundreds of bookcases form a maze of knowledge before him. Nothing but time has touched this place. There’s no blood on the walls or floors, no gore or grime, no death.

Daryl tilts his head to look at the upper floors. There are balconies hidden in the shadows, faint outlines of doors and corridors which make him believe that the building is even larger than he’d previously thought.

There’s a small office on the left, with a staff lounge. He enters it cautiously, his crossbow pressed against his shoulder, but the weight of it makes his aim unsteady now that strength is slipping away from him.

His heart sinks when he spots an empty water cooler. There’s nothing else but files and more books.

He walks back towards the main hall, wandering through it until he stumbles upon the children’s section. There’s a small table with even smaller chairs. Coloring books are strewn all over the surface, crayons lie forgotten beneath the dust.

When he was really small, his mother had taken him to a local library so he could read books they couldn’t afford to buy. It been a dingy little place, run by some local elderly women and a school teacher, nothing like this at all. He remembers liking the outings. Sometimes one of the women would read to the children and he’d listen, clinging to his mother’s skirt and shying away from pointing out animals in the big books. Now, he can’t quite remember whether he’d liked the stories or getting out of the house best.

There’s a book lying open on another table. It has pictures of a garden and a little girl who’s planting flowers under the watchful eye of her mother.

He picks it up and stuffs it in his bag. A present for little ass-kicker. Maybe they can show her how simple life used to be, how much it has changed. Proof that the world once was a much nicer place.

‘Aren’t you a little old for that?’

Daryl whips around, raising his bow at the strange voice, to spot a young man sitting on top of one of the bookcases. There’s a gun in his hand but it isn’t aimed at the hunter. His legs dangle down, army boots kicking the shelves in an unfamiliar rhythm. There’s a smile on his face.

‘Hello,’ he says, eyeing the bow rather than the man holding it. ‘Please don’t shoot me. I come in peace and all that.’

Daryl feels sick. His arms burn and his mind races, trying to figure out how the hell he could have missed the guy when he’d first entered the building.

‘Nobody ever looks up,’ the guy says, answering where Daryl hadn’t asked. ‘Biters aren’t known to be great climbers. And I don’t growl when you knock on my door either.’

‘Who are you?’ Daryl demands, ‘you alone?’

‘Yup. Name’s Benjamin. You can lower the bow now, I’m perfectly harmless. I’ll put away the gun.’ He holds up his hands when Daryl’s grip on his bow tightens, ‘easy, it’s okay. I saw you entering, could have shot you a million times. Want me to come down?’

‘Yeah.’

Benjamin nods and turns around, lowering himself and using the shelves as supports until he can safely hop down.

Daryl lowers his bow with a frown. The man had turned his _back_ on him. He feels sick again, bile rising in his throat. ‘ _I_ could have shot _you_ a million times now,’ he says.

‘Oh, don’t brag,’ Benjamin laughs as he turns around, ‘just once, crossbows take a long time to load. But by the looks of it, you would’ve only needed one shot.’

‘What makes you say tha’?’

Benjamin shrugs, ‘there’s a gun stuffed into the back of your jeans, knife on your belt. You wouldn’t wield a crossbow if it weren’t your weapon of choice. _What could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?_ Terry Pratchet. You don’t seem the type to sit and wait. You must be a good shot with it.’

The flood of words makes Daryl blink confusedly, though he narrows his eyes to masque it. Another bout of nausea hits him hard. He staggers a bit, reaching out to grab hold of one of the bookcases before he topples over. His legs feel all wrong.

‘You okay?’ Benjamin asks, stepping forward with a concerned look on his face. ‘You look funny.’

‘Get back! _Back_!’

‘Okay, okay, easy. Easy, I’m stepping back,’ he raises his hands and back away a few small steps. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, okay? Just looked like you could use a bit of help. What’s wrong? You hungry?’

Daryl’s head snaps back up, ‘you got food?’

‘Yeah, loads,’ Benjamin stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans and wobbles on his feet. ‘Those two raiding the shops on the opposite side of the road, they part of your group? They’re not going to find anything there. The town’s been cleared out.’

‘Yeah, no shit,’ Daryl grumbles, ‘what are you doing here?’

‘Hiding?’ Benjamin shrugs, ‘wasn’t planning on staying, but, you know, kind of happened, I guess. Good a place as any. There were a couple of groups who passed through before, but no-one ever checks the library so it wasn’t a big deal. I’ve been here a couple of months.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yeah, lost my group a while ago. We were heading for Washington, but... hey, are you sure you're okay?'

'I'm fine. Do you have water?'

'Yeah, up in my room.'

'You got a room?'

'Are you just going to list everything I might own? Food, check. Water, check. Room, check. Who do you think raided the town in the first place? It's all upstairs, but you need to climb the bookcase to get to the first floor; I've barricaded the stairs in case any biters found their way inside. Wasn't much of a problem until _a certain someone_ left the doors open behind them.' Benjamin lifts an eyebrow just as a menacing growl echoes through the hall. Shuffling feet and ragged breath indicate an approaching walker. Just one, from the sound of it, but others are sure to follow. They always do.

Daryl pushes himself away from the bookcase and shoulders his bow again. Dark spots dance in front of him. His legs almost give out just as all strength leaves his arms. The bow clatters to the floor. He turns away from it, falling against the shelves, and vomits.

'Shit,' Benjamin says, rushing forward to grab his shoulder. 'Fuck, what's wrong with you? Are you bit?'

'What, no, fuck off!' He tries to shove the other man away from him to create more distance, safety, but his movements aren't coordinated enough. Instead he just paws feebly at Benjamin's chest.

The growling gets closer.

'Best let me go!' He snarls, now reaching for his knife, but dizziness causes him to fall to his knees instead. The whole world spins around him as Benjamin tries to keep his head from hitting the bookcase.

'Quiet!' the man hisses, 'you're going to draw more in.'

'Gotta get back,' Daryl murmurs, trying to get back up, 'the house... Rick... Rick said at dusk.'

'It's not dusk yet, shut up!' Benjamin looks over his shoulder at the walker that’s heading down the hallway. It’s a man, clothes ragged and blood covering what’s left of his body. He’s missing an arm, parts of his shoulder. The front doors are still open. Three more walkers follow the angry growls of the first.

‘- don’t understand!’ Daryl says loudly, arms flailing as he tries to get up. ‘Little… ‘nd Carl… We need to find…’

‘You need to shut the hell up,’ Benjamin hisses back. ‘You need to shut up, _now_ , or I’ll make you!’

The last thing Daryl sees before he passes out is Benjamin who draws a sharp-looking knife.


	2. Shenanigans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl wakes up in the library.

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Daryl notices upon waking is the fact that he’s lying in a make-shift bed. A soft mattress supports his aching muscles and soothes the nagging pain in his lower back. A pillow cradles his head. He blinks through the haze of sleep and memories to find himself in a small office. Sunlight is streaming in through a window. The temperature isn’t as high as it was yesterday, so he supposes it’s still early in the morning.

With a groan, he hoists himself up onto one elbow. The room spins for a second and nausea hits him hard, but at least his muscles only tremble and don’t give out completely.

 There’s a tower of books right next to his pillow. It’s topped off by a coffee mug. Clothes are kicked into a corner, shirts, jeans, socks and underwear, all shoved into a pile. A sturdy looking black back-pack rests next to it. There’s a chair and desk, both at serious risk of overflowing due to the sheer amount of books and papers on them.

Daryl eases himself back into the bed, staring up at the ceiling. The nausea slowly fades. He clenches and unclenches his fists experimentally and is pleased to find that a little bit of his old strength has returned.

Dread slowly start to creep back into his mind and muscles. The memories of how he got here are hazy. He remembers finding the man on top of the book case (or maybe he was the one who was found), Benjamin, who’d laughed and scoffed and told him to shut up before drawing a wicked looking knife. There’s no pain anywhere in his body, Daryl realizes, but panic still soars. Trembling hands search for an entrance wound or a bite.

He can’t find any.

The door opens.

For a moment, Daryl’s heart stops and sinks at same time. His blood curdles in his veins, nerves surging, until he recognizes Rick.

The former sheriff steps into the small office. He’s holding a plate and a bottle of water.

‘Good morning,’ he says when he notices that Daryl is awake.

‘Morning,’ the hunter mumbles, eyes down. He pushes himself up and backwards so he can lean with his back against the wall. Only now he notices that he’s not wearing his boots anymore. His socks are caked in mud and sweat. He feels kind of bad for soiling the nice bed with filth from outside, but perhaps everything gets stained in the long run. Can’t be helped, he thinks.

Rick sets the plate on one of the piles of books, out of Daryl’s reach. He sits down on the edge of the mattress, joints cracking. ‘Small sips,’ he says when he passes the bottle of water over. ‘Don’t down it in one. You suffered from dehydration, Maggie says. You can have some food later.’

‘Thanks.’ Daryl opens the bottle and takes a small sip, savoring the feeling of the liquid rushing down his throat. ‘Where are we?’

Rick shakes his head and rubs a hand over his chin, nails scraping through his beard. His eyes are brighter than yesterday, lips no longer cracked and bleeding, but he looks angry. Hands curl into fists and his shoulders are tense when he looks at his friend. It seems to take him a lot of effort to start the conversation in a normal tone. ‘You told me you were fine,’ he manages to say through clenched teeth.

Daryl huffs out a breath of amusement before taking another sip of water. He can’t believe Rick would hold him to those words. They’re constantly under thread, from starvation, dehydration, everything and everyone, how can anyone be _fine_ in this new world?

‘Right,’ Rick nods, reading his friends body language better than most. ‘See, I don’t get this.’ He shifts so he can look at Daryl. ‘All those people we came across, guns in their mouths, nooses around their necks, you always called them stupid. Dumb fucks. Why would you lower yourself to their level, huh? Why would you opt out now?’

‘Opt out?’ Daryl repeats, voice cracking a bit, ‘What the hell, I didn’t-‘

‘Yeah? Well, not for lack of trying! You blacked out with a walker five feet from ya. Next time, put a bullet between your eyes. It’s gotta be the brain, remember?’ Rick gets up and stalks over to the window. He’s too thin, nothing but skin and bones. The sunlight masks the deep lines on his face and casts a strange glow over his features. He leans against the window frame with one hand, hanging his head.

‘I didn’t opt out of nothing,’ Daryl says, tilting his head back against the wall so he can look up to his friend. ‘Just knew we had to find something, didn’t matter how. I hadn’t exactly planned on passing out in the middle of a goddamn library!’

Rick pushes himself away from the window and points at Daryl, ‘this wasn’t for us. You didn’t do this for _us_! This was just an easy way out! What if a walker had gotten you, did you ever think about that? What was I supposed to tell Carol this time? She wouldn’t have understood this, Daryl! Nobody would have.’

Daryl doesn’t answer. Instead he takes a gulp from the water, letting it slosh around his mouth before swallowing. The nausea is fading quickly and strength starts to seep back into his limbs.

Rick takes a deep breath and sits down on the mattress again, forcing his friend to meet his eye, ‘we need you. You can’t take such risks, even if you think you’re taking them for us.’

It hurts that the sheriff would think that he would ever abandon them like that. That he would offer himself as walker-bait and be done with it. If he opted out, he would do it himself, and do it properly. Bullet in the head, no doubt about it, but he hasn’t come all this way for it to end like that.

If he goes, he’ll go by a mercy shot after losing a fight, not because he didn’t put one up.

Or if he has to do it himself, he’ll go like Merle, by taking as many as he can with him.

‘Here,’ Rick takes the plate and passes it to Daryl. ‘Try to take it slowly, your stomach might not be able to handle all this in one go.’

‘Hmm,’ Daryl acknowledges, shoveling some beans into his mouth before glancing up for a second. ‘Where are we now?’

‘Still in the library, one of the offices on the second floor. Maggie and Glenn went back for the others, they’re a couple doors down. This guy, Benjamin, he found us after you’d blacked out. Just came walking up to the house, hands raised, unarmed. I thought he’d lost his mind but he brought us back to you, offered to take us in, gave us food, water. He’s got enough to last us for a couple of weeks.’ Rick glances at Daryl for a moment. ‘He’s just one guy.’

He doesn’t need to say anything else. Daryl knows what he means. They can easily take down one guy. The fact that they can, however, doesn’t mean that they should. It feels wrong even thinking about it. Though his memories are hazy at best, he remembers that Benjamin caught him off guard. He could have easily killed him.

‘Saved my life,’ he murmurs, drawing up one knee and sipping his water. ‘’s gotta count for something.’

‘It does,’ Rick nods, ‘but…’

The door opens again and Benjamin steps into the office.

‘Hey,’ he beams at Daryl, ‘good morning, handsome, how are you doing? Feeling any better?’

The hunter nods, ‘yeah, thanks for the food,’ he mutters before digging in again, ignoring the name-calling even as Rick lifts an eyebrow.

‘You’re very welcome,’ Benjamin grins as he rocks on the heels of his feet, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. The blond hair is now hidden under a black baseball cap and he’s wearing a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. The army boots click on the floorboards as he rocks back and forth. He looks like he’s just walked off of any college campus, save for the knife that’s on his belt and gun which is tucked behind the waistband of his jeans. ‘Oh,’ he turns to Rick, ‘I wanted to ask; is it okay if I give your son one of those candy bars? He’s been eyeing them all morning. He’s not allergic or anything, right?’

Rick blinks, ‘no,’ he manages, ‘no, he’s not allergic.’

‘Great!’ Benjamin beams again. ‘And, by the way, if you’re planning to kill me in my sleep in order to steal the supplies, I’d like a bullet to the brain, and preferably when I’m asleep or turned away. I’d hate to see that coming, would kind of ruin everything, I think. So, yeah, clean and simple, please.’

Rick splutters at that, ‘we weren’t…’

‘Sure you weren’t. Well, I’m up to sharing anyway, if you decide you want to keep me around. You seem all right.’ The skin around his green eyes wrinkles when he smiles.

The former sheriff looks at Daryl for help, not knowing what to say, but the hunter ducks his head and pretends not to notice. ‘Thanks,’ Rick answers lamely.

Benjamin nods and turns on his heels before walking out again, closing the door behind him.

Rick gives Daryl a disbelieving look, ‘how the hell did you find this guy?’

 

 

After a couple of hours Daryl manages to get up without having to cling to the walls for support. The water and food have done wonders. His legs finally feel steady again as he moves around the small office to stretch. He finds his boots near the door and stomps them on, not bothering to lace them properly.

He steps out onto the corridor which provides an overview of the main hall. Now he can see that Benjamin must have hopped onto one of the book cases from the balcony before jumping to others in order to sneak up on him like he had done yesterday. He still can’t believe he hadn’t heard a thing, but blames it on dehydration rather than stupidity.

Voices lead him to one of the other offices. The whole group has gathered in there. A few are catching up on some much-needed sleep. Glenn is curled up in the corner, clutching his back-pack as he sleeps. Rosita is sleeping next to him, her head on Eugene’s shoulder while the man talks to Abraham in quiet whispers.

Carl has Judith in his lap. He’s sitting at a desk, flipping through one of his beloved comics as his sister tries to grab the pages. He hushes her with a distracted kiss on the top of her head.

Carol is sitting on a table, furthest away from the door. Her legs swing freely, feet jingling to the beat of an imaginary song as she keeps watch over their family.

Daryl makes his way over to her, keeping his head ducked to avoid the eyes of anyone who’s awake. He hops onto the table. Their thighs press together and their shoulders bump amicably.

‘Hey pookie,’ she greets with a sly grin, knowing how much he hates the nickname. It’s the only reasons she’s still using it.

‘Hey,’ he mumbles, brushing his hair in front of his eyes and focusing on his boots. ‘You okay?’

‘Yes, Benjamin has been a gracious host. You still look like shit.’

He huffs out a breath of amusement at that and bumps their shoulder together again, ‘thanks.’

A burst of laughter draws his eye to Tara, Rick and Benjamin who are sitting on the floor. The blond man is leaning forward, trying to be quiet while gesturing animatedly with his hands, while Tara throws her head back to howl with laughter. Even Rick hides a grin behind his hand. Carl looks up from his comic with raised eyebrows and his father gestures that it’s okay to join them. Judith switches family members as Carl sits down beside his dad, leaning into his side as he eyes the stranger warily.

‘He’s quite the character,’ Carol muses.

‘Got a big mouth on him,’ Daryl notes, making the woman laugh quietly.

‘Big mouth, big heart.’ She gives him a look he can’t quite place.

‘Suppose.’ He rubs his nose and bites the nail of his thumb. He can’t quite shake the feeling that they’re being played. There must be an ulterior motive, some kind of angle they haven’t thought of yet. No-one survives in this world by just having a big heart and funny stories, after all. But then again, Benjamin could have taken them out one by one yesterday and yet he hadn’t. There aren’t any things around this place that don’t seem to belong to the young man, so he probably is by himself, just like he’d said. He probably wants protection, or their guns. Possibly both.

Laughter rings out once more, with Benjamin silently clapping his hands together as Carl looks up to his father with a wide grin on his face.

Maybe, Daryl thinks darkly, he’s just an idiot. Someone who desperately clings to the Old Ways, like Dale had tried to do. Maybe he just isn’t damaged enough for this new society. That’s only a matter of time, he knows. He’s seen others break. It always happens, sooner rather than later. It will happen to Benjamin too.

Daryl catches a glimpse of a wide smile and flashing green eyes. He’s not so sure he wants to be around to see it happen, this time.

‘Maggie and Michonne are on guard duty,’ Carol says suddenly, ‘though Benjamin claims that it isn’t necessary. It’s just to be safe, we’re with a lot more now. The noise draws them in.’

He nods, kicking his feet a little.

‘We’re going to start making dinner soon. Anything you’d particularly like?’

It’s such an asinine question that he doesn’t even know what to say. He wonders whether she’s slipping back into the role of den-mother, now that there is a stranger to perform for. He hates the act. It makes her look stupid and unimportant while she is anything but.

She ignores his incredulous look, ‘there are barrels filled with rainwater in the room next door. Go wash up, you smell as bad as you look. Maybe you can borrow some clean clothes from Benjamin while I wash yours. That shirt might be beyond saving, though.’

‘What, he’s dressing us now? Ain’t he a saint.’

‘I like him.’ She gives him another look which is supposed to mean something significant, but he doesn’t quite know what.

‘You don’t even know him.’

‘I still like him.’

‘Suit yourself, lady,’ he mumbles before squeezing her knee and walking back to the room with the makeshift bed.

It feels strange to walk around the small office, which clearly served as Benjamin’s bedroom. The dirty clothes kicked in a corner, piles of reading material, used cups and plates everywhere. It reminds him of his own old bedroom, with the unmade bed and shelves covered in dust. There’s a cup in the windowsill with a toothbrush, a bottle of water and some toothpaste. A used razor on a broken hand-mirror.

Now that it’s lighter, he can see silvery writing on the used-to-be-white walls. Words, sentences, paragraphs adorn the wall, written with pencil. The ones at the top are already fading, the ones on the bottom, however, shine like wet blood in morning light.

The handwriting is sloppy and uneven, with T’s missing their finishing lines and I’s without their dots. C’s could be A’s but also O’s or E’s with only the punctuation holding the sentences together.

There’s one word written on the exact middle of the wall. It’s starting to fade. Daryl traces the letters.

‘It’s my favorite word.’ Benjamin is standing in the doorway, one side of his mouth tilted up in lopsided smile. ‘It means silly or mischievous behavior. But just the sound of it makes me laugh.’

‘Thought it meant doin’ something shady,’ Daryl says with a glance at the other man.

‘That too. That’s not why I like it though.´ The other man walks into the room, looking around for a second before moving towards one of the cabinets. His body language is open and engaging, though his hands are pushed into the pockets of his jeans. He removes them now to open the cabinet. ´Your friend said you might need to borrow some clothes, Carol, I think?’

Daryl grunts, ‘if ya got a shirt I can loan…’

Benjamin nods as he rummages through a pile of clothing, ‘sure, some jeans too? I think we’ve got about the same size.’

‘Whatever.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ the younger man flashes him a smile over his shoulder before throwing some clothes his way. ‘Here. These should fit you fine, gorgeous.’

‘Stop that.’

‘Stop what?’

‘You know damn well what.’ Daryl leans back against the wall with folded arms.

‘The nicknames? Can’t really help it, mouth’s faster than my brain,’ Benjamin laughs as he grabs another couple of shirts and jeans, which he stuffs in his backpack, ‘and it’s not every day that I have a hot redneck in my bed. Not that I’m complaining, mind. What’s your name then, if I can’t call you sweet nothings?’

‘It’s Daryl.’

‘ _Daryl_ ,’ Benjamin says as if he’s tasting the word. ‘Well, I already gave the others the drill but you were napping so,’ he laughs at the glare the hunter gives him, ‘I’ve locked up the front doors, you can get out via the roof or the windows downstairs, but be sure to board them back up. Water and food are in the storage rooms. Grab anything you need, I don’t mind.’ He grabs his backpack and hoists it onto his back, pulling at the straps as he looks around the room. ‘I’ll go and sleep downstairs for a while. I don’t think Rick will want me around his kids.’

‘You givin’ up your bed?’ Daryl asks, even though that’s not what he wants to asks.

Benjamin shrugs, ‘there are a couple of couches down there. They’ll do.’ He runs a hand through his blond hair, ‘want to intimidate me now or later?’

‘What?’

‘ _Hurt my family and I’ll murder you in your sleep_ , something like that? I already had Rick all over my ass last night and that lady with the sword? _Damn_.’ He laughs again, ‘thought we’d best get it over with too.’

Daryl eyes him for a second. ‘Seems you already got the point.’

‘It wasn’t hard to get. And Rick gave a physical demonstration, although it wasn’t so much _murder me in my sleep_ as it was _strangle me while I try to save his brother_.’ Benjamin smirks, white teeth flashing. ‘Wrong brother who got all up-close and personal, if you ask me.’

Daryl glares.

‘All right, all right,’ Benjamin says, backing away with raised hands and a lingering smile on his face. ‘No one’s asking, got it, heart-breaker. Daryl, I mean. Got it, Daryl. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a bunch of strangers to feed so I’d love to stay and watch you get changed but I really should get going.’

Daryl hesitates for a second as Benjamin laughs and turns on his heels but then he calls out; ‘you were right, you know, yesterday.’ He bites his lip when Benjamin looks over his shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised in a silent question. ‘One shot is all I need.’

The younger man sobers up as he touches the door, running his nails over the wood. He nods. ‘I know.’

‘So no _shenanigans_ ,’ Daryl warns him.

Benjamin’s face breaks out into a wide smile once more. He laughs, shaking his head a little and glancing at the wall where the word shines in the bright daylight. ‘Nothing shady,’ he promises, ‘but I can’t promise no mischief.’

 ‘All right,’ Daryl says softly. He can’t help but let a small smile curl around his lips. Their eyes meet for a second. Bright green and dark blue. Then Daryl looks away, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Now fuck off and let me change.’


	3. Seven

 

* * *

 

 

Daryl has never met anyone like Benjamin. Not even before the outbreak.

 

There’s a camping stove standing in the middle of the room. Two large pots balance on the pits. The smell coming from them makes Daryl’s mouth water.

Benjamin is sitting in front of the pots, stirring the contents every couple of seconds. He’s laughing at something Carol said, skin wrinkling around his eyes. He nods, ‘I do have a lot of experience making this! When I went off to college, my mom would call me every week to check whether I hadn’t starved myself to death by accident or something, and every single week she would say; don’t just make mac and cheese, okay? Really cook!’ He laughs again and shakes his head, ‘I never listened.’

The corners of Carol's mouth quirk upwards, ‘that’s the only thing you can make? Mac and cheese?’

‘Well, no, I can cook. I just never felt like it. Too much work, I always got bored half-way through. Maybe I’ll make you something else tomorrow,’ he gives her a wink and bumps her shoulder lightly, ‘if you’re lucky.’

Rick watches in a bemused fashion as the exchange takes place, rocking Judith and trying to make her eat some of the mac and cheese. Daryl sits next to him. Occasionally the little girl will crawl into his lap to escape the food and find shelter in the crook of his arm or his tummy. Chubby hands reach for his long hair, tugging at the strands with glee.

‘Has everyone had enough?’ Benjamin asks, glancing around the room.

The group has spread out over the room, with Glenn curled up in the corner, almost too tired to keep his eyes open after the meal, and Maggie sitting guard in front of him. Eugene, Abraham and Michonne are sitting beneath the window, surrounded by empty plates and with hands on guns and knives. Noah is siting with the girls: Sasha and Tara, heads bowed and eyes wary.

Carol is the only one who chose to sit with the new man, though the smell of Mac and cheese had lured Carl over too. He’d been send back to the safety of the group by a stern look from Rick. Now he sits next to Daryl and has practically licked his plate clean.

‘We’ve had enough,’ Rick says with a curt nod. ‘Thank you.’

‘Okay, great. Let me just wash these up then.’ Benjamin jumps to his feet. Uh-uh,’ he says when Carol starts to get up too, ‘please sit down, you’re my guests tonight so I’ll do the dishes. You won’t be guests tomorrow, mind, so enjoy these final chore-less moments. Get some rest.’ He squeezes Carol’s shoulder. ‘And you just sit there and be cute.’ He eyes Daryl for a moment before tapping Judith’s nose, pretending he was talking to her all along.

Carol hides her grin behind her hand as the archer frowns.

As soon as he’s out of the room, Tara turns to the group with wide eyes, ‘is he… is he _flirting_ with Daryl?’

‘He’s been flirting with everyone who still has a heartbeat and is off age,’ Michonne scoffs and then smirks, ‘but he’s got a special thing for mister Dixon there.’

‘Shut up,’ Daryl murmurs as he lies back with Judith on his chest. The little girl paws at the shirt he’s wearing, one of Benjamin’s. It has the name of a band on it, one Daryl has never even heard of, and the dates of a tour throughout all of America. He wonders whether Benjamin had bought the shirt at one of those places, or whether he’s just found the shirt in someone else’s closet.

It’s a little tight around his biceps, leaving a faint red mark whenever he tenses his muscles for too long, but fits fine otherwise. They have the same jeans size.

‘What?’ Tara leers, ‘you don’t do hot and talkative?’

‘I said _shut up_!’

He glares up at the ceiling, ignoring the stern look Rick gives him. The others mutter something under their breaths about checking whether the guy needs some help and slink away. Carl glances at Daryl and jumps to his feet. ‘I’ll go and see if I need to take Rosita’s watch now.’ He pulls the sheriff’s hat over his eyes and ducks out of the room.

Everything is silent for a couple of seconds. Daryl sets his jaw stubbornly as Rick shares a shuttered look with Carol before turning to his friend.

‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘You don’t like him? You want him gone? Is that it?’

Daryl doesn’t respond. Judith climbs over his chest, feet digging into his skin and bones. He loops a protective arm around her before she slides off.

‘Look,’ Rick says, shifting again so Daryl has to look at him. ‘This place is _secure_. We’ve got food, water, everything we need. We can make something of this place. You know we can.’

He’s heard those words too many times now. They mean nothing to him.

It’s been a long time since the prison fell and by now he has accepted that he’ll never find a home in this new world. There will temporary haunts, shelters, houses, but never again a place which will remind him of the home he’d shared with Merle, or the place their father had ruined and mom built.

He can’t believe that Rick is buying into this, whatever this is. It’s been months since Terminus, but the memory of that place still haunts him and he refuses to believe that Rick is just handling it better than him. How can he put so much faith in someone they don’t know? He doesn’t understand why they’re sharing meals with him, why he’s even allowed to touch Judith. He’s not family. He’s not _theirs_.

The stoic silence seems to drive Rick crazy. With a frustrated grunt he gets up and storms out.

Carol loops her arms around her knees and watches him silently. The grey hair is sticking up in wild angles, probably mussed from running her hand through it too many times. He can barely remember her without any hair. Back when they met, she’d been a shy and frightful woman. Now she isn’t scared to tell him or anyone what’s on her mind.

‘Where’s my bow?’

‘With my things,’ she says softly, plucking at her fingernails, ‘in the other room.’

He grunts and lets Judith paw at his face. Little fingers stroke over his nose, down his cheek and through his stubbles.

‘Tell me what’s wrong.’ Her tone isn’t pleading, but it’s soft and tired. Her boots slip over concrete as she adjusts her arms so she can rest her head on her knees. Bright eyes regard him. She smiles when Judith laughs and grabs his nose.

Daryl chews on his lip, turning his head away slightly so he doesn’t have to meet her eye. ‘Nothin’.’

Carol nods, ‘you think we should just throw him out? Or put a bullet in him? Make him leave?’

‘No.’

‘But _we_ should leave, right?’

‘That’s not what I’m sayin’.’

‘You’re not saying anything.’ The look Carol gives him is guarded and he instantly knows that she’s expecting him to lash out at her. He usually does when someone pushes too hard or comes too close, but there’s no point. Carol already knows too much about him, it’s too late to try and get her to back down now.

‘Just got a bad feeling about this, is all.’ Judith’s hair is soft beneath his callused hands. It’s still blonde. He wonders how long that will last. He remembers pictures of him when he was a baby, his mom, proud and tired, in a hospital bed with Merle sulking on the edge of the frame, scuffed shoes and dirt on his face from playing outside. The pictures had been slightly out of focus. His dads hands had always trembled when he had tried to stay away from the booze. And he’d tried that twice in his whole life. Both times it had ruined baby pictures, though Merle didn’t care and Daryl pretended not to.

Back then, his hair had been as blond as Judith’s is. It’s darker now, and only changes with the seasons when the sun bleaches his hair or winter turns it into a solid brown.

He knows that he isn’t being reasonable. There isn’t any reason to dislike Benjamin. The man saved his life, after all.

He looks at Judith, kisses her forehead, and sighs.

Carol plays with her hair while leaning on her knees, ‘I like him. And you’re right, we don’t know anything about him, but we have to try. We took people in at the prison. We trusted them and we built a new society for ourselves. It worked. It _worked_ , Daryl.’

But it didn’t last. The urge to crush her hopes and dreams is almost too great, or too easy, but he isn’t usually cruel so he bites his thumb instead of responding.

‘We can’t go back to how we were before the prison. I won’t let us. We’ve lost too many people to give up now. It takes time to get used to new people, and you’re right, he’s… different.’ Carol flashes him a tiny smile. ‘But we don’t know him. It wouldn’t be fair to judge him so soon. Remember when we first met?’

Daryl grunts and shifts uncomfortably.

‘Want to know what I thought of you when we first met?’

_Red-neck trash, that’s all you are_ , Merle leers at him from past hallucinations, or memories he can’t quite remember. He must have said it a million times, phrased one way or another.

‘No.’

Carol nods thoughtfully. Her gaze never leaves him. ‘Okay.’ They both know his refusal only drives her point home. He doesn’t need the confirmation. And he doesn’t want to hear her say it. ‘Just try. That’s all we’re asking.’

‘Fine.’

‘Okay,’ she says again, rocking back and forth for a second. ‘He saved your life. You didn’t think I liked him because of his pretty smile, did you?’

 

 

There’s a ladder at the end of the corridor which leads to the flat part of the library rooftop. A hatch seals the entrance, though they now keep it propped open with a brick so they can get down quickly should they need to.

From that part of the roof, they can oversee the whole town. The ones on guard duty come back with new things they’ve spotted every time, ranging from walkers to wicked looking cars they had wanted to own before the outbreak. They make up stories about the people who had lived in such a small town and why they had come to earn such a stunning library.

There’s a separate room on the very end of the corridor, right before the ladder. It’s part of an old exhibit. Glass cases present old pictures of heartbreak and horror. Black and white scenes of fire and death. Houses aflame in the background, an entire city being burned to the ground. There are watches of those who died, blackened but still ticking, and newspapers, yellow and fading.

Daryl walks around the room, glancing at the pictures and objects. His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his jeans like he’s preventing himself from being able to reach out, like he expects his mother to scold him for trying to touch things which aren’t his. It’s silly, he supposes, but he still leans in close to observe the watch instead of just opening the case and picking it up.

The city had burned a long time ago. The houses which remain now are fragments of the city it used to be and the big library a mere reminder of the amount of souls that had once walked these streets.

He remembers how thin the trees had seemed while walking through the forest. And how the soil had reminded him of soot.

The city had never been rebuild. The people who’d lost their homes and loved ones had moved to other places with less memories. No-one wants to build their home upon a graveyard.

‘What are you doing here?’

Daryl looks over his shoulder to find Rick there. There’s a gun slung over his shoulder and a bottle of water in his hands. He’s probably on his way to relieve Tara from her watch.

‘Nothin’,’ he says, rubbing his chin on his shoulder to get rid of an itch, ‘I can take watch if you want.’

‘No, it’s fine. Get some rest.’

‘Had plenty of that.’ He sets his jaw and doesn’t meet Rick’s eye. By what he can reconstruct, he’s been out cold for almost a day. His muscles still feel odd, like they can’t properly process the commands he gives them, but he doesn’t want the others to go easy on him. He doesn’t want to appear weak, least of all in front of Rick, whom he regards so highly.

Rick sighs and shifts like he doesn’t quite know what to say.

‘Fine,’ Daryl says and turns to head back to the main office.

‘Hey,’ Rick steps closer, ‘Benjamin offered Judith and Carl his bed, said he’d take one of the couches downstairs in the main hall.’ The dark eyes search Daryl’s, ‘away from everybody.’

The hunter looks at his brother warily, ‘so?’

‘I thought,’ Rick shifts his weight uncomfortably, ‘I thought maybe you could take the other couch. Keep an eye on him.’

‘So _I_ can get killed in my sleep?’

‘Listen, that guy wants to do a lot of things to you, but it ain’t putting a bullet between your eyes. Trust me. Hey, _hey_ ,’ he says when Daryl turns to walk away, ‘you’re the only one I trust, okay? We shouldn’t take chances with him. He _survived_. He’s strong enough to be a threat to all of us. I would do it myself, but I don’t want to leave Judith, not after… I don’t want to leave her for the night.’

Daryl sighs and glares at his feet, ‘fine. I’ll keep an eye out.’

‘Good. Thank you. He’s already downstairs.’

Daryl nods and hitches his bow higher, ‘see ya later, Atlanta.’

 

 

It takes him little time to find the children’s section. It’s quite a large and colorful area at the back of the hall. Countless small tables and chairs are strewn around and there’s a carpet which resembles a city’s outline. Tiny roads on which kids could race their toy cars around. There’s a miniature hospital with a chopper on the roof, a police department and school. Right next to it is a great chest filled with toys. Dinosaurs, cars, dolls.

Judith might like those, he thinks as he passes it, he’ll have to bring one up to her.

Benjamin is lying on one of three couches. He’s on his back with his feet on the armrest, holding a book up above his head. Flipping a page causes him some trouble. He lowers the book into his lap to do so and thereby catches sight of the archer.

‘Why, hello,’ he grins, pushing himself upwards into a sitting position. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine,’ Daryl grinds out as he walks over to one of the racks on the side to inspect the books there. He’s not particularly interested in the titles, but it gives him something to do other than talk to the other man. Of course, that doesn’t deter Benjamin from speaking to him.

‘You’re free to take one, if you want. I’m sure they won’t mind.’

It gets on Daryl’s nerve how easily he’s giving things away. The books don’t matter of course, but only because they have no real use for them in this new world. But all the other things, food, water, shelter, it’s precious now. Worth more than money or gold. Worth more than anything, and he’s just giving it all away.

They’ve bled for their food, their shelter, their water. People died trying to save it. How he can be so casual about it, Daryl doesn’t understand.

The couch behind him creaks as the man gets up and joins him at the racks.

‘Read any of those?’ he asks.

‘Ain’t much of a reader.’

The banality of the conversation isn’t helping either. It makes Daryl sick. Small talk with strangers has never been his forte, less so now. What makes him uneasy now, however, is the fact that he starts to suspect that he doesn’t understand Benjamin _because_ he seems unbroken. The small talk comes easy to him, a second nature still in a world that has gone to shit around them. Maybe it’s him, he thinks. Maybe he’s the one that’s too fucked-up to ever be around normal people again. The thought hurts more than he’ll ever admit.

‘They’re romance novels, anyway,’ Benjamin says. ‘Maybe not really your thing.’

‘No.’

‘That’s okay, I’m too much of a romantic sometimes, so we’ll be perfect together. Even each other out.’ The blond leans against the bookcase, arms folded and a teasing smirk lingering around the corners of his mouth. ‘You can feature on the cover of one of the adventure novels, though. Got the looks and everything.’

Daryl glares at him through his bangs.

‘ _I glared daggers at him, but they just bounced off him like water on a freshly waxed car._ H.P. Mallory.’ Benjamin cocks his head to the side, ‘why do I annoy you so much?’

Daryl grunts and turns back to the books, reading the titles without registering them.

‘I know I talk too much, but people have been telling me that since I _could_ talk, so I can’t promise to ever get any better at shutting up. Sorry. I do try.’

He scoffs now, because no, he’s never been around anyone who talks so much. Sure, Merle used to ramble on about anything and everything when he was high or drunk, and he’s had other friends who were far fonder of talking than he himself ever was, even as a child, but not like this.

But if he’s honest, that’s not what’s annoying him. Not at all. Sometimes he envies the people who wear their hearts on their sleeves. He often finds himself grasping for words, not quite knowing how to morph his thoughts and feelings into words which always feel too clunky on his tongue. He may not be very eloquent, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a lot to say. He likes to think that his actions speak for him, though others often find them as difficult, or even more difficult, to understand than his feeble attempts at conversation.

‘What kind of books do you read? Or do you not read at all?’

‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t read.’ Who the hell has time for that, these days, he thinks bitterly, when they’re all so preoccupied with sheer survival.

‘Heresy. You’re standing in a library, how dare you.’ Benjamin unfolds his arms and rubs at his jaw, where the shadow of a beard starts to form. ‘I could select some book I think you’d like, if you want me to. I’ve spend a lot of time here. I’m sure I’ll be able to find you something.’

In a flash of anger, Daryl grabs Benjamin’s shoulder, pushing him against the shelves with a rough shove. His fingers dig into fabric, skin and bones, trembling with the suddenness of his own actions. Their faces are close together, noses almost touching as their breaths mingle.

‘ _Stop_ offering to give us stuff,’ Daryl hisses through his teeth.

Benjamin seems frozen, eyes wide in surprise and mouth slightly open in shock. His hands move up to Daryl’s chest, resting against his ribcage, preventing him to step any closer but not pushing him away. When Daryl doesn’t say anything else, just stares at him in a haze of anger, he relaxes slightly. His hands fall away.

‘What are you so worried about?’ he asks softly. ‘That this is a deal with the devil? That I’m just waiting to collect your debts? I don’t want anything from you. None of you. I’m just trying to do the right thing here. You were in need and I had the means to help you. That’s it. You’re free to go or stay or do whatever you want. I don’t care.’

Daryl doesn’t answer. One of his hands moves from Benjamin’s shoulder to the shelve behind him.

‘Do you think this is easy for me?’ Benjamin asks. His eyes narrow as he sets his jaw, grinding his teeth together. His hands come up once more, but now they shove Daryl backwards, away from him. ‘You just storm in here with all your secrets, all those ties that make you family. I’ve been alone for a long time now.’

The hunter lets himself be pushed away as his own anger fades as quickly as it had flared.

‘I should have let you die.’

The words cause Daryl’s gaze to snap back to Benjamin. His eyes narrow but the young man just looks at him. The green eyes seem darker now. They remind Daryl of the muddy field behind their old family home. The place where his father had taught him how to shoot a bow as a little kid. The only thing he ever taught him that had been worthwhile.

‘That’s what you want me to say, right?’ Benjamin asks. ‘That would have been normal. I was just protecting what’s mine, after all. You were trespassing and weaker. Two reasons why you should have been six feet under by now. But that’s not who I am, okay? I don’t care about the rules of this new world. I want to hold on to the person I was before the outbreak for as long as I can. It’s not easy. I’ve done things… Terrible things, but I know I did them only because I had no other choice. You probably think I’m an idiot, but I honestly don’t care. I’m tired of being scared of everything and everyone!’

‘That’s what keeps you alive.’

‘No.’ Benjamin says, shoving him back again. ‘It just makes sure that you’re _alone_!’

The way he says it, makes it sound like it’s the most nightmarish situation he can think off.

Daryl used to think that he was better on his own, that he didn’t need anyone looking after him. It’s why he moved his tent to the outer skirt of Hershel’s property and why he didn’t take any of the bedrooms at the research center. Of course, time has taught him better. He knows he wouldn’t have survived without Merle, without Rick and Glenn, Maggie, Hershel. Not without Carol.

And while he loves to go out hunting on his own, he can’t imagine coming back to an empty camp.

‘How long have you been alone?’

Benjamin sets his jaw stubbornly and pushes himself away from the shelves, brushing past the hunter. ‘What do you care? Look, just wanted to say; I don’t expect anything in return, okay? It’s fine. I don’t care.’

Daryl watches as the younger man throws himself back onto the couch. He picks the book he’d been reading back up and pointedly flips a page.

‘A month?’

Benjamin scoffs, ‘Oh, _now_ you wanna talk, well guess what? I’m done talking for today.’

‘Two?’

‘What are you, four years old? You’re just going to nag until you know the answer?’

‘Three months?’ Daryl asks, eyebrows drawing together.

‘ _Seven_ ,’ Benjamin hisses as he jumps to his feet again. He stalks over towards the table and smacks his book down on it. With angry movements, he rips his belt free and throws it onto the table as well. The handle of the knife clatters onto the wood. ‘There, my knife, here’s my gun,’ he grabs the weapon from the back of his waistband and places it on the surface. ‘Now you have your goddamn answer and my stuff, so are we done now? Are you feeling safe enough now? Oh come on, don’t think I don’t know why you’re here. Drew the short straw, huh? Babysitting the terrifyingly talkative stranger?’ He walks back to the couch and throws himself onto it, turning his back to Daryl. ‘Goodnight, Daryl. And you better hope those front doors hold, because this time I won’t be able to save your ass.’

Daryl stares at the lean back. _Seven months_?

‘Stop staring. Get some sleep.’

Maybe that’s why his intuition is going haywire over this guy, Daryl thinks as he sinks down on the couch next to Benjamin’s. Not because he’s never met anyone like him, or because he just doesn’t understand him, but because he _fascinates_ him.

‘What did you do?’ Daryl asks.

‘I’m not even kidding right now,’ Benjamin grumbles, kicking the armrest. ‘ _Shut up_ , or I’ll make you. Are you into that kind of thing? It’s becoming a theme between us. Bit too kinky for me, though. I wish you’d just shut up on your own. You don’t really seem the talking-type, you know, so you should really be glad that I’m… For fuck’s sake,’ the young man curses as he catches on on the fact that he’s keeping the conversation going. ‘Just, just shut up about it, ‘kay?’

Daryl looks at him in the near darkness. And doesn’t answer.

 

When he wakes up in the morning, Benjamin is gone.


	4. Interrogations

 

* * *

 

 

Guard duty passes without anything noteworthy happening. Daryl sits on the edge of the roof, cross-legged on the ridge, and cleans his bow. It doesn’t really help much, some spots are scrapes which expose the metal frame beneath the paint rather than dirt, but it gives his hands something to do. His bolts are in good shape, which is always a soothing thought. He has a couple of spares in the quiver that is stuffed in his backpack and hasn’t run out since they left the farm.

Hunting has been a favorite pastime in these parts of the country for generations. He’s been able to find decent bolts in all sorts of sheds and hunting cabins. Of course, he knows how to make his own, if it’s absolutely necessary, though the wooden cores are less reliable. They break easily due to the sheer force the crossbow transfers. When he was little, he once saw some-one try to use a wrong arrow on their bow. It had shattered, catapulting shards of wood into a hand and cheek. He doesn’t like to take chances where his bow is concerned.

On the street below, walkers slowly make their rounds through the town. They seem to wander around aimlessly, following various sources of noise the wind provides. Sometimes an animal makes its way into the town and causes a frenzy. Most animals are fast enough to get away on their own. Wild dogs scurry around while trying to find some food. They’re the skinniest dogs Daryl has ever seen. Some have obvious battle-wounds on their bodies; scars and festering open wounds. He wonders whether animals are immune to the virus. He’s never seen a walker-dog, but imagines that it must be one of the most terrifying things he could ever come across.

The sun is slowly crawling up to the heavens as he sits there. His poncho is first wrapped around his shoulders, then moves to cover his legs until he finally casts it aside when it gets too warm. He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt to expose his pale skin to the early morning sun. The sun’s kiss will turn it pink and red before settling on a shade of brown. He unbuttons his shirt and lets it hang open. His stomach and chest are much paler than his arms because even in winter he likes to rolls up his sleeves so the tan only fades but never disappears completely. It’s one of his pet-peeves; having his arms covered. He’s not sure why. He never uncovers his back, for obvious reasons.

He likes to walk around bare-footed, though he never does nowadays. The cold kiss of linoleum in the morning is as much missed as the soft carpet of his living room. Now, he sleeps with his boots on most of the nights. It’s one of his rules of surviving; always be ready. He can’t really complain since he’s still got his boots from before the outbreak. Sturdy and mostly watertight. He’s replaced the laces three times now and hopes they’ll last forever.

The hatch behind him is thrown open and Carl climbs up on to the roof. The boy is wearing a shirt that is much too big on him and jeans which are too long and wide. They pool over his sneakers, making it hard to walk. He’s still wearing the sheriff’s hat, dark hair peeking out from under it. The gun with the silencer hangs from a self-made holster on his hip. It swings in time with his steps.

‘Got you breakfast,’ he says by way of greeting when Daryl glances at him. He plops down on the ridge and puts a plate down in front of the man.

‘Thanks.’

‘They’re washing our clothes,’ the boy murmurs as he plucks at the jeans he’s wearing. ‘Should be dry tonight.’

Daryl hums his acknowledgement while digging into the meal.

They’re silent while the hunter eats. Carl looks out over the town, his eye on a couple of walkers who wander down the street and scratch at the doors of the library. There are always a couple of them there, drawn in by the sound of their voices, footsteps or even scent. It can’t be helped.

A fire escape leads from the rooftop down to the back of the building. They barricaded it just to be sure, even though walkers rarely wander up stairs trying to find food.

‘Do you think we can stay here?’ Carl asks without looking at Daryl.

‘I don’t know.’

The boy picks up a twig that has blown onto the roof and rubs the end of it against the stone, trying to make it pointy. The wood is much too soft. It turns to mush in his hands. He looks up at Daryl, ‘Glenn says we should go.’

Daryl glances at him and nods.

‘Dad says we could stay a while.’

‘Hmh.’

‘What do you think?’ Carl looks at him from under the brim of the hat. He squints a little against the sun.

Daryl thinks about how much that boy has grown since they met. Back then, he was just another scared little boy clutching his mother’s leg. They never really talked. Lori had never liked him much and his brother even less, so she was sure to never entrust Carl into their care. Not that they would have accepted the responsibility, mind. But, like everyone of their little family, Carl grew on him.

He’s always been fond of children. Their boundless curiosity is something which never fails to make him laugh and their resilience is something to be admired. Of course, he’d cared for Sophia because she was just a frightened little girl, but he cares about Carl too, though the boy is far from helpless. He’s a straight shot even under pressure and he never whines about having to walk too long, which Daryl appreciates.

Still, they don’t talk all that much. Maybe a hint of Lori’s warning about the redneck brothers still lingers in the boys mind. The fascination he has with the crossbow hasn’t yet won from the hesitation Daryl’s sullen behavior draws out. Some days Daryl catches him studying the equipment, trying to figure out where and how to place the bolt, or trying to mimic Daryl’s pose when he shoots. He’s thankful that the boy is smart enough not to lay a finger on his most prized possession. It’s not that he doesn’t want it touched, per se, it’s the fact that it’s not a toy.

When he was younger, the pleading looks were easy diverted with a comment on how Carl wasn’t strong enough to wield the thing, how he should stick to guns, but it’s getting harder to deny him now. Soon, Carl will work up the courage to ask for a lesson. He probably won’t say no.

Now, however, he thinks about what to tell him. Of course Glenn wants to get a move on. He’s rational about their situation while Rick just wants a safe place for his kids.

‘We can’t stay forever,’ Daryl murmurs as he licks the spoon clean. ‘Supply’s good now, but it’s gonna run out sooner or later.’

‘Couldn’t it be like the prison? Or the farm?’ Carl asks eagerly. ‘There’s gardens here, we could grow some food. The library is big enough for all of us.’

‘Ain’t got no defences. Want to clear the whole town?’

‘It’s not that big.’

Daryl snorts, shaking his head before pushing the plate away from him. There are still some bites left. Carl eyes him for a couple of seconds before hesitantly dragging the plate away from the man. Tentative fingers curl around the spoon. He takes a quick bite, eyes on Daryl at all times.

Daryl doesn’t react. He lets Carl finish his food, though he wishes the boy wouldn’t wolf it down so quickly. With a frown he growls, ‘chew, would ya?’

Carl smirks back, a faint blush rising from his neck to his cheeks. ‘Sorry. Benjamin already gave me half of his food too. I’m still hungry.’

‘You’re still growing, ‘course you’re hungry.’

‘You think I’ll be as tall as dad?’

‘Hundred feet taller,’ Daryl says dryly as he uncurls from the edge and stretches. ‘Benjamin’s still around?’

Carl frowns and looks puzzled as he runs a finger over the plate and then licks it clean, ‘yeah, where else would he be? He’s got some maps of this place, dad’s looking at them now. There are still some houses Benjamin hasn’t stripped for batteries and such. Medicine. Maybe some new clothes. I’ve been wearing the same two shirts all winter. It’s kinda gross.’

‘They’re going into town?’

‘Guess,’ Carl shrugs. He looks away and pulls the hat lower over his eyes, ‘you know, Benjamin called Tara pretty.’

‘So?’

‘Said you were handsome too.’ Carl shrugs, trying to seem casual. He keeps stealing glances to try and see Daryl’s reaction to this bit of gossip. ‘Told Carol that he thought that you were… you know, handsome.’

Daryl rolls his eyes, ‘he’s just messing with ya, kid.’

‘I don’t think he knew I was listening, but, yeah, yeah, you’re probably right.’ Carl laughs nervously, kicking his feet against the ridge. ‘Doesn’t matter anyway, right? ‘Cause he said Tara was pretty, so, you know, maybe he likes both, guys and girls. That’s a thing, right? Bisexual? So he still likes girls.’

Daryl can’t help but stare at the kid and think about why the hell he deserved to have this conversation. Where’s Rick when you need him. He ain’t going to explain the birds and bees to some-one else’s kid.

An awkward silence stretches between them. Carl squirms under the gaze and then caves, ‘I know you don’t like him much, but he _did_ say she was pretty, so, you know… He’s not really like _that_ , so maybe, you know, you can let him stay.’

Daryl frowns. It takes him a couple of moments for the message to sink in. ‘What people get up to is their own damn business. We wouldn’t send him away for that.’

Carl’s eyes grow wide for a second, ‘no, I know – I mean, dad said that it’s fine, you know, to be, but… Okay. Good, I’ll take your plate back inside. Noah has the next shift. See you.’

He grabs the plate and hurriedly climbs down the ladder, landing on the floor with a painful-sounding thud.

Daryl winces on his behalf. It’s only when the hatch closes that he realizes that Carl had already spoken to Rick about Benjamin. And Rick had said that it’s fine to bat for the other team so obviously they must have thought that Daryl might have a problem with it. That that was the reason why Daryl didn’t like the other guy much.

He’s not really surprised and he can hardly blame them. Red-neck trash and all that. Three years ago, they’d probably been right. He was raised believing that all gays were faggots, sinners and best taught how to behave properly with a steel pipe or sharp right-hook. Merle was always quick with vicious words and leers and their dad was a narrow-minded arsehole, so he never knew any better.

But their dad is long gone and even Merle is six feet under, so now it’s all on him. And he couldn’t care less about what people get up to in the dead of night. As long as he doesn’t have to witness it, it’s all good to him, but he supposes that isn’t based on any genders. He once walked in on Glenn and Maggie by accident and Lord knows that hadn’t been pretty.

Some might call it wrong based on their religion, but Daryl hasn’t been to church in decades. When he was very little, he still attended mass with his mom but after she died, he continued praying for several years but none of those were ever answered. His dad drank himself to death. He can’t see the hand of God in that. Human stupidity, is all. That’s what he believes in.

Besides, he’s pretty sure Tara swings the other way and that hasn’t changed his opinion of her. She’s still a stubborn little thing, and one fine shot.

 

It’s several hours later that Daryl lowers himself through the hatch and goes to find the others. The offices are empty, so he jumps over the railing and climbs down the bookcase, noticing that someone made it easier by placing several filing cabinets next to it to form a staircase. It’d still be impossible for walkers to climb, but he is grateful that he can now lobe down without looking like a fool.

He passes some members of his impromptu family who are reading books and old newspapers. Maggie is cleaning their guns at one of the large tables. The parts are all spread out before her, resting on couple of shirts so the small pieces don’t roll away.

‘Want me to clean yours as well?’

He hands his piece over without thinking about it. ‘Thanks, where’s Rick?’

Carl, who’s been sitting in the corner with one of his comics, looks up with wide eyes, but keeps quiet.

‘Near the front doors. There’s a small scale model of the town,’ Maggie says with a small smile. ‘He’s interrogating Benjamin.’

‘All right,’ Daryl nods before walking off. His bow is a comforting weight on his back as he passes the front doors. Nails scratch on the other side. Growls echo faintly through the hall.

There is indeed a small scaled model of the surrounding town on this side of the library. It used to be covered by a glass plate which prevented anyone from touching the structures, but that is now placed against one of the walls. When Daryl gets closer, he sees that there are even tiny cars and people on the streets. The buildings are well-made. He recognizes the house they first entered immediately, and of course the large library in which they are now holed up.

Rick stands on one side of the table, gazing at the little town with a pensive look.

Glenn is leaning against one of the bookcases with his arms folded and head lowered.

Benjamin is sitting backwards on a chair, arms resting on the top of the backrest, chin on his hands.

They all glance at him when he approaches and only Benjamin quickly looks away.

‘Hey,’ Rick greets as he leans forward to examine a building up close. He then looks at Glenn, ‘what about the cars?’

Glenn scoffs, ‘what are we going to do? Move them all? That would take _weeks_.’

‘But it would keep them out.’

‘Not all of them, and not a herd. It might be a small town, but we can’t guard the entire perimeter at all times.’

‘We could, from the rooftop.’

Glenn sighs and throws his hands up, ‘come on. I know you want this, so do I, but we can’t make this work, Rick. We need to move on, sooner or later. There’s isn’t any fertile ground in this area. Those vegetable gardens aren’t going to be enough. This isn’t like the prison. Or the farm. We need a place we can control. Benjamin said it himself; people come through here all the time! How are we going to defend this place? It’s a death-trap.’

 Rick looks at their newest member, who nods. ‘Before you guys, there was a group about two weeks earlier, I think. Passed right through town. It has happened a couple of times while I was here.’

‘Why didn’t you offer them nothing?’ Daryl asks as he ducks down to look at the streets on eye-level. The details are amazing. There are little windows and doors. Some of them are open, giving him a glimpse of what’s inside the buildings. Little living rooms, small shops, even a miniature bar.

‘Didn’t seem like the kind of folk who’d take kindly to a stranger. It’s easier when they just swoon at your feet.’

Daryl narrows his eyes at Benjamin, who looks back innocently.

Rick bites back a grin, ‘all right. What about the school?’

‘We’ve been through it,’ Glenn moans as Benjamin lets his forehead fall onto his hands. ‘It’s _too exposed_. There isn’t any farmland here, Rick. We have to move on. Maybe not right now, but soon. Benjamin’s got enough supplies to last us a while, we should hit the road before we run out’

Benjamin hums and looks up again, ‘I’ve got a car you could use. Lord knows I’m not going anywhere.’

Rick slowly turns towards him, eyes wide.

‘Sturdy looking thing, parked two blocks away,’ the young man says, running a hand through his blond hair. ‘Maybe you can find some others that still work. Gather some fuel, just to get ready.’

‘Why don’t you leave?’ Daryl asks.

‘I just don’t.’ His words are clipped when he gets up, ‘I’ll go and see if the others need a hand with the laundry. If you think of any other questions, just holler, ‘kay?’

He’s gone before Rick can even turn to Daryl with a surprised look on his face. The former sheriff takes a couple of steps towards his best friend, ‘what’s the matter with you two?’

‘Nothin’.’

‘Doesn’t look like nothing.’

Daryl bites his thumb and doesn’t answer. He leans down to look at the buildings again. A layer of dust covers the roofs and roads, but one of the buildings is dusted off. A small house on the edge of the town.

‘Has he told you anything?’ Rick asks now, drawing his attention back. ‘Who he is? Who he was? How he got here?’

‘Nothing, man. He’s been here a while, though.’

Glenn frowns, ‘why didn’t he leave? He had supplies, a car. Why choose to stay?’

‘Safety,’ Rick offers, ‘familiar surroundings, I mean, who knows what’s out there. And he’s just one guy. There wasn’t anyone to watch his back. How long do you think anyone can survive on their own these days?’

Seven months, Daryl thinks but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he shrugs and hitches his crossbow higher, pulling at the straps. 'I'm gonna check on the back windows.'

 

At the back of the library are small rooms which are meant for studying. Some still have traces of their last occupants. Textbooks, abandoned laptops, some notepads. A set of headphones nearly tangles around his feet when he goes to check on the window. Most of them are boarded up, but a few are merely blacked out with paint. He runs his hands over the smooth surface, checking for cracks where walkers might have tried to claw their way in, but there aren't any.

After a couple minutes and checking all the rooms, he heads back to the second floor. Tara, Rosita, Eugene and Michonne are doing the laundry, though Michonne seems to supervise rather than contribute.

He passes the room with a curt nod.

Benjamin is in his old room. He's sitting on top of the desk with a thick book in his lap. He looks up when the door opens and sighs when he sees Daryl.

'What're you readin’?'

He closes the book, 'nothing. For someone who loathes talking, you sure have a way of striking up a conversation every chance you get. What do you want now?'

Daryl shrugs and moves over to the window, 'they were just talking in circles. Rick knows we need to leave eventually. Got bored.’ He stretches, joints popping, ‘could kill for a cigarette.’

‘A smoker during the apocalypse. Tough times,’ Benjamin muses. ‘And you’ll probably have to. Kill, that is. Forgot to get any cancer-sticks on my raids, sorry.’

‘Don’t matter anymore,’ he murmurs, ‘won’t get old enough for cancer.’

‘You don’t know that.’ Benjamin looks at him. ‘What if one day you find a safe place? One where you can grow old, live happily, and then you’ll still die young. Seven minutes less every time, isn’t that the rate per smoke?’

Daryl looks at the walkers milling about below him, ‘seven minutes less doesn’t sound too bad.’

Benjamin hops down the desk and walks over to him. ‘It won’t always be like this,’ the other man says. ’ He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks on the balls of his feet. They stand side by side, looking out over the village below. ‘One day, it’ll all be back to normal. We’ll live in a quiet little town, have a boring job, moan about taking out the trash. The children will go to school. The church bells will ring. People will get married. Buried. Born.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

Benjamin smiles. ‘That’s okay. It’ll happen, even if you don’t believe in it.’


	5. Favorites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of self-harm.
> 
> Thanks for reading! My first language isn't English by the way, so if you spot any wonky sentences, please let me know!

 

* * *

 

 

‘Favorite kind of drink? Non-alcohol, beer’s too easy.’

Daryl sighs and wipes his forehead, ‘iced tea.’

‘How very stereotypical of you, Mr. Dixon,’ Benjamin laughs while trying to sound appalled.

‘Shut up.’

They’re standing in the living room of a house close to the library. It’s one of the few houses Benjamin has only raided for food and nothing else. Daryl’s found some batteries which still have some juice in them and a couple of empty water bottles which they can use when they finally decide to leave. The house had belonged to an older couple so there aren’t any items of clothing they can bring back for Carl or any of the others. There’s a small clothing store on the main street. They’ll probably strike gold there.

‘Your turn.’

The game reminds him of the one he’d played with Beth, before they’d burned down the cabin. The memories are vague due to a haze of moonshine, but he remembers her laugh and those words which still ring true to this day. _You’re gonna to miss me so bad when I’m gone, Daryl Dixon_. He still doesn’t understand why he ever agreed to play the stupid game, anyway. He knows he’s a bad drunk. Angry and far too harsh for that sweet southern gal.

This game he plays with Benjamin is different, however. It’s an easy way to convince the blond man that they’re in a civil conversation while Daryl doesn’t have to contribute much. Giving away the fact that he liked iced tea best before the outbreak and thinks rabbits are easiest to shoot isn’t the most useful information to be held against him, after all.

Information is now just as valuable as money had ever been. It’s what makes people trust you. The more they know, the easier you are to predict, the less of a threat you seem. It’s the reason why they still spend hours talking around the campfire while there’s never anything new to discuss. They tell stories about their lives before the outbreak, the dreams they had, the pasts they survived. He never shares much, of course, because, really, nothing much had happened to him before the outbreak.

‘Favorite book?’ he asks Benjamin, who is going through the kitchen drawers. He finds a couple of matchboxes and stuffs them in his bag.

‘What genre?’

‘Dunno. Just your favorite book.’

Benjamin turns to look at him, ‘ _Excuse me?_ ’

Daryl, who’d been going through the cabinets in the living room, glances over his shoulder, ‘what?’

‘ _Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose_. Neil Gaiman. And that’s five! I can’t pick just _one_ favorite.’

‘You’re such a nerd.’

Benjamin turns back to the drawers, ‘that’s a terrible insult, you know. _When people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is “you like stuff”._ John Green.’

‘Why do you keep doing that?’

‘What?’

‘You’re quoting people, aren’t ya? Or, like, books or something.’

‘Yeah, bit of both, I suppose. Sorry, just a habit I picked up. Before the outbreak, I was studying literature, so I’ve read a lot of books and poems and what not.’ Benjamin closes the last drawer, he runs a hand through his blond hair, making a mess of it. His hat is clipped to his belt, bumping against his hip when he walks.

‘And you just remembered all that stuff?’

‘Having a eidetic memory helps. I remember almost everything I’ve ever read.’

Daryl stops his search again to look at the young man, who seems oblivious to the hunter’s gaze. He goes through the last drawer in the kitchen but comes up with nothing. He closes it again and turns to the archer, raising an eyebrow when he sees that he’s being watched. ‘What?’ he asks. ‘It’s not that special, and not nearly as accurate as people often claim. I can’t recall _everything_ of course and not in horrifyingly specific detail. Some things just stick. With me, it’s the written word and just things that caught my eye, nothing else. Can’t recite last year’s Sunday’s paper or anything.’

‘Hmm. So you studied literature?’

‘Yeah, at college.’

Daryl nods, feeling a bit out of his depth. He hasn’t even finished high school.

Benjamin seems to pick up on his uneasiness and smiles, leaning against the counter top. ‘I really liked college. My mom was a teacher at a primary school. She used to tell me that, when she left school, she knew she had to find a way to get back in because she loved it so much, so she became a teacher. That way she would always be in a school. I think I felt the same about college. Absolutely loved being there, all those different classes, professors, students. I thought it was amazing, just being there, you know? Some people went to college because they wanted to, I don’t know, become the next world leaders, CEO’s, scholars or whatever. Not me,’ he laughs at himself, shaking his head. ‘I’m not terribly clever. I was just stubborn.’

‘You got in though,’ Daryl murmurs, abandoning his search to lean against the wall. He brushes his long hair out of his eyes.

‘Yeah, suppose. I just didn’t have the college mentality, you know? Change the world and all that. My counsellors always warned me that I would end up in a cubicle somewhere. Like that’s the worst thing that could happen to someone.’ He laughs again, tilting his head back and rubbing his hands over his face. ‘I think I would have loved my cubicle.’

Daryl can't help but smile a little at that.

'Dog, house, garden, husband, wife, boring job,' Benjamin says through his hands, 'having fourth of July barbeques in the backyard, flipping burgers on the grill, getting the paper on Sunday mornings, oh, I wanted it all. Just a _normal_ life.'

'And now look at ya.'

Benjamin moans as he drags his hands down, over his chin and neck until they fall by his side, 'I know! Fucking walkers growling in my backyard instead of some cute German Sheppard. I don’t own a grill. I don’t even have a cubicle! Oh my God, this is _tragic_.’

Daryl smirks at his theatrics.

‘Yeah, you can smirk,’ he pushes himself away from the counter top and saunters over to the hunter. ‘When did we stop playing the game again?’

‘You didn’t answer the question,’ Daryl points out.

‘Was a stupid question to ask a nerd. Ask another.’

‘I’m done playing.’

Benjamin laughs and tugs at Daryl’s shirt, ‘spoil sport.’ They’re standing so close that Daryl can see the first traces of a sunburn on the other man’s cheeks. Small droplets of sweat cling to the hair curling around his ear. He’s wearing a dress shirt, blue this time, and there’s a dark patch on his collar where the sweat slowly soaks into the fabric. The fingers linger on Daryl’s shirt, touching the buttons absentmindedly as they look at each other.

‘Scared Carl pretty good,’ Daryl says to break the moment.

‘How did I do that?’

‘Calling me good-lookin’ like that. And Tara pretty.’

Benjamin snorts, ‘he heard that?’

‘Yeah. Told him you were just messing about.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Benjamin reaches up to push some of Daryl’s hair out of his face. The redneck leans back instinctively, trying to get some more distance between them. He doesn’t usually like to be touched. By now he’s learned to accept Carol’s kisses on his forehead just as easily as he accepts Rick’s pats on the back, but Benjamin is still too new and unpredictable. ‘Rick had to teach him there’s such a thing as bisexuality? Must have been one awkward conversation.’

‘Are you?’

Benjamin hesitates for a second, ‘bisexual? Technically, I suppose. Identify more with pansexual.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’m attracted to personalities, regardless of genders.’

Daryl scoffs, ‘everyone says that.’

‘And if everyone actually was, the world would be a better place,’ Benjamin says with a mocking smile. Then he sobers up suddenly, the smile disappearing. ‘What did Rick say?’ He tries to sound casual but he looks at Daryl’s chin, rather than meeting his eye.

‘Probably told him about the birds and the bees. Kid was worried we’d throw you out for it, but Rick’s cool with it. Tara’s still here, ain’t she?’

Benjamin nods and glances up, ‘what about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Are you cool with it?’

‘Makes no difference,’ Daryl murmurs before pushing past the other man and heading for the front door.

‘What doesn’t?’ Benjamin asks as he follows him. ‘Whether you’re cool with it?’

Daryl rolls his eyes even though the other can’t see him, ‘who you’d like to screw, makes no difference to me.’

‘Okay.’ Benjamin sounds oddly relieved. ‘And for the record: it’s you. Biter on the porch.’

‘Got it,’  Daryl answers as he opens the door and raises his bow. Though neither is really sure to what statement he’s actually responding.

 

The bark of trees are warmed by the sun. He lets his fingers trail over them as he walks past, the rough bark scratching his callused skin. Patches of moss tickle the palm of his hand. There’s a faint trail leading through the thin trees. Probably a deer, going by the marks in the soil, but it passed hours ago, maybe even yesterday. The chances of him catching up with it are slim to none, but he’d rather follow a faint trail than wander around aimlessly.

He’s tied a piece of rope around his torso, going over his left shoulder down to his hip. Four birds dangle from it, tied up by their necks.

It’s been a while since Rick allowed him to go off on his own for such a long time. He left after raiding the house with Benjamin, which had been early in the morning. They hadn’t found anything particularly useful except for the matches, but Daryl suspects that Rick already knew that. It had been more of a trial of trust than a run for supplies. It’s why Daryl was the one who got to go, even though Carl had practically begged his dad to be let out to find some fresher clothes.

Benjamin had led him out of the library via the roof, and then the fire escape. They had ran for a couple of minutes, ducking behind abandoned cars to avoid being seen. Eventually they did run into a couple of walkers, but they were easily taken down with his bow and Benjamin’s knife.

He had to admit that the  guy could handle himself well. He was both fast and quiet, despite the heavy army boots he seemed to prefer, and didn’t seem scared to confront the walkers up close. Lots of people, even Rick and Glenn, would stay back when Daryl was with them, relying on his bow to take the walkers out from a distance, but Benjamin seemed to rely more on his aim, and trust that Daryl wouldn’t shoot _his_ head off instead of a walker’s. It had worked out well, the two of them.

Outside, Benjamin knew to keep quiet, though he liked to talk once they’d cleared the house. The game had lasted for a couple of minutes. Mindless chatter about favorite foods and drinks and hobbies. It seemed to please the blond guy, anyway, and Daryl hadn’t minded much.

Now, he’s walking through the woods surrounding the little town. He’s been at it for hours now, with not much luck. The birds are a nice addition to their supplies, but there’s a lot of people to provide for and four birds won’t cut it. It’s still early in the season. A lot of game has yet to emerge or return.

The sun is starting to sink. Shadows are growing longer around him, making it more difficult to find the trail in some spots. He should be heading back to the town soon.

Just when he decides to turn around, he spots the faint marks of a track. It probably used to be some kind of back road, only used by locals. He looks left and right, figuring that it would lead from the town to another place, but he can’t remember seeing anything on the small-scale town in the library.

He turns right to follow it. He still has about an hour left of sunlight. It should be enough to make it back in time. And even when it’s not, he knows how to navigate his way back in the dark, though Rick wouldn’t be happy if he did.

The tracks were made by cars and trucks, a while ago. It follows a fairly straight line, sometimes bending a bit to weave through patches of trees. Bushes have started to overgrow it now that no-one passes anymore, but Daryl is always able to find it again.

After twenty minutes, he ducks under a low-hanging branch and stops.

The trail has led him to a lake. Tall grass marks the boundary between water and earth. It’s quite a large lake too. He imagines it’s deep. The water ripples due to the wind, breaking up the even blue surface and making it impossible to estimate its depth from this distance.

He walks closer to the edge and spots a large rock that leads into the water. Kids probably used to swim here on hot summer days.

He hops onto the rock and walks towards the edge of the water, careful not to lose his balance and tumble in. He kneels at the edge. The water lapses around his boots. For a while he just watches the water flow around him. Then he scoops some of it up in his hands, splashing his face with it. It’s so cold it stings on his sun-kissed skin, but he’s eager to get rid of today’s sweat and grime so he does it again. He washes his hands, dips his rag into the water to clean his neck and shoulders, and then walks back to the dry area to kick of his boots. He rolls up the jeans and walks back into the water.

The bite of cold disappears after a couple of minutes as his feet get used to it. He wriggles his toes, kicking the water a bit, and then kneels down to clean his knife.

It’s a pretty spot, he thinks as he looks around. It reminds him of the lake where he’d picked the flowers for Carol and Sophia.

He stays for a long time. And all the while he thinks.

About Terminus, how they just walked in there with open eyes, baring their throats, following their guts and only realizing something was off when it was already too late. Pigs to slaughter. How they knelt on the concrete, choking on a gag in his mouth, how happy he was to hear others die, anyone who wasn’t part of his family. Sometimes he wonders how they have come to this.

About how far they’ve come. He remembers killing his first squirrel, deer, walker, human. That first squirrel was brought home by a fifteen year old boy, proud of his own skill and stealth, who got a slap across the back of his head because he should have shot more than just one if he wanted to have some dinner at the end of the day. The first human was Dale, whom he had called brother.

About Rick, who is his brother, and now forces them to stay in a new slaughterhouse. The library is big and safe for now, but Daryl knows others will come. They always do. They should move on while they still can, while they can pack and prepare and not have to fight their way out at the last second. But it’s not his call. If it were up to him, they’d never settle anywhere ever again, but he knows he can’t put Judith through that, or Carl, or Carol. They need a place like the library. Something that’s theirs to rebuild.

About Benjamin, who already has that kind of place and took them in without even thinking about it.

About Benjamin, who laughs too much.

About Benjamin who went to college and dreamed of a damn cubicle and fourth of July barbeques but now handles his gun like it’s second nature.

About Benjamin who’s made him laugh more in the last two days than he has in the past two years.

About Benjamin, who is _fascinating_.

He gets out his pack of cigarettes and lights one. Nicotine rushes through his system, making him slightly light-headed for the first couple of seconds. His nerves settles at last. He blows the smoke up in the air, watching it disappear into nothing.

He licks his dry lips before taking another drag.

And he thinks about how Benjamin licks his lips sometimes before flipping a page of his book, wonders how it would feel to lean close and run his own tongue over those pale lips, taste that smiling mouth, feel supple skin move beneath his hands, lean muscles shift under his fingertips. The press of hips against his, strong arms and bright eyes.

He thinks about Benjamin.

After one last drag, he ends the cigarette on the back of his hand.

And thinks about the pain instead.


	6. Ain't my problem

 

* * *

 

 

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ Benjamin greets cheerfully as he jumps over the back of the couch to land beside Daryl. There’s a wicked grin on his face. The blond hair is still dripping with water from the semi-shower he just took upstairs. He’s wearing a wife-beater which used to be white, and his jeans are slung low on his hips. The army-boots aren’t laced properly but that doesn’t deter him from jumping and running, apparently.

‘Good morning to you,’ Noah laughs from where he’s sitting on the floor. ‘You sound happy.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be? _God’s mercy is fresh and new every morning._ Joyce Meyer,’ Benjamin says as he looks around, ‘any breakfast left?’

‘Yeah, but no bowls,’ Carl pipes up. He’s stirring in one of the pots. ‘Or spoons, sorry.’

‘Oh, that’s fine. I’ll share Daryl’s, right?’

The hunter shrugs and passes his bowl back to the boy, who heaps some more food into it. He takes another bite of it before passing the spoon to Benjamin. It causes Carol to smile at him while she’s trying to feed Judith, but he ignores it. He grabs his bag and drags it closer to the couch so he can reach the bolts inside the quiver. He takes them out and studies them carefully, laying a couple aside which have fletchers that he needs to mend.

‘You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,’ Gabriel chides.

‘Sorry Father,’ Benjamin nods before taking a couple of bites, ‘hmm, that’s good, Carl, thanks.’

The boy beams at him.

‘If it’s okay with your dad, we could go down to the clothing store today,’ Benjamin offers. ‘Get you some clean stuff. Maybe Rick, Maggie, or Daryl can come, you know, to make sure I don’t throw you out as biter-bait.’

Carl’s eyes light up and then he sobers again, ‘dad and Glenn are going to scout the area with Sasha, Maggie and Tara. The rest has guard duty.’ He glances up for a second, ‘and Daryl is going out hunting, I think.’

Benjamin chews his food with a hum and then arches an eyebrow at his friend, ‘well?’ he asks him, ‘are you?’

‘Am I what?’ Daryl asks distractedly. He’s looking down one bolt to see if it’s damaged in any way. The fletchers are a bit ragged, but that won’t matter much.

‘Madly in love with me?’

Carl nearly chokes on his food and Carol laughs when Daryl’s eyes grow a little wider in surprise. Benjamin grins and knocks their shoulders together. ‘No, we were wondering; are you going out hunting today?’

‘Why?’

‘Carl and I need a chaperone to go shopping.’

‘Fine,’ Daryl murmurs as he inspects the tip of the bolt. The boy has been nagging about the damn clothes ever since they arrived at the little town, so he supposes he won’t stop until they actually go. Might as well get it over with.

Carl whoops and jumps to his feet to go find his father and ask permission to go. His running footsteps echo through the entire hall but no-one tells him to be quiet. They’re all happy that he has something to be excited about after the hardships of the last months.

Benjamin wipes his mouth and then leans over to press a kiss to Daryl’s cheek before the other guy knows what’s happening. ‘Thanks.’

Daryl turns to glare at him, but stops when Gabriel makes a noise of disgust.

‘Abomination,’ the Father murmurs under his breath.

Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl sees how all color drains from Benjamin’s face. The younger man looks down at the bowl and slowly takes another bite. He swallows, but it looks painful and forced. He grimaces and pushes the bowl back to Daryl.

‘You finish it,’ he says, ‘I’m going to get my bag and… Meet you up the roof?’

Daryl nods and returns to his bolts.

There’s so much he wants to say, to Gabriel, to Benjamin, but he chokes before his tongue can even wrap around the words. So he stays silent and doesn’t look up until Carl comes rushing back to collect him for their little trip. He makes sure not to look at Carol. He doesn’t need to see the clear disapproval on her face.

 

For the first time, Benjamin is quiet. He barely says anything during the entire trip.

And it feels all _wrong_.

 

‘It’s beautiful.’

Carol is standing at the edge of the lake, looking out over the water. There’s a gun in her hand, a bloody knife on her belt, but she smiles when she turns to look at Daryl, who led her to this place.

The hunter is leaning against a tree, chewing on a strand of grass. His hair falls into his eyes, concealing most of his expression. The shoulders are hunched, his arms crossed. When he moves his head slightly, she can see glimpses of his eyes.

She turns back to the lake when he doesn’t answer. ‘Thank you for bringing me here.’

While the library provides room for all of them, it can’t offer them a sense of privacy. There’s always someone just around the corner, in the next room, sharing your space. But here, the silence rings out over rippling water, shifting through the trees, following their very footfalls.

It’s not often that Daryl allows her to come on his little hunting trips. He usually shrugs her off, telling her that she’s too loud and clumsy, which is true enough. She doesn’t feel at home between the trees, and the shadows never hide her as well as they do Daryl.

The woods, to her, are what stole Sophia. The last place she ever freely roamed and it took her little girl for its own. There’s always anger lurking beneath the patches of moss, loss in all the leaves that fall. Sometimes she can hear Sophia’s voice when the wind rushes past the trees, as if it mocks her in her grief.

But while the forest seems a hostile place, she never fears it when Daryl walks beside her. He can predict the moods of the woods by the way the branches swing gently in the breeze, or how the roots of the trees try to snare their feet. He never stumbles. Never falls. And when she does, he’s always there to help her up.

This time, however, he merely nodded when she told him that she would join the hunting trip.

They haven’t caught anything yet, which means that Daryl hasn’t been trying. He hasn’t said a word since they left, but that’s nothing new. The fact that he has led her to this place, however, means that there is something on his mind. He never wanted to hunt, just wanted to get _away_.

She’s pleased to know that _away_ doesn’t necessarily mean away from _all_ of them.

For a couple of moments, she searches the ground and picks up some rocks. Flat ones. She tries to make them skip over the water. It doesn’t work. They sink as soon as they hit the surface.

‘Angle’s all wrong,’ Daryl says after a couple of tries. He pushes himself away from the tree and saunters over, taking a rock and letting it skip over the surface.

She tries and fails again.

He gathers more stones and gives her the best ones.

They move towards the plateau of rock from where it’s easier to throw. After a couple of tries, she gives up and sits down, watching as Daryl continues. She kicks off her shoes, then pulls the sweater she’s been wearing over her head, which leaves her in a tank-top. The sun has warmed the stone beneath her.

There’s sweat running down Daryl’s neck. He throws a stone up in the air and catching it again, looking pensive.

‘Penny for your thoughts.’

He looks back at her, peeking through his hair, while turning the stone around between his fingers.

Sometimes it break her heart how torn he looks.  

‘Why didn’t you say something to Gabriel this morning?’ She asks when it’s clear that he’s not going to start the conversation. ‘I mean, it wasn’t right, what he said.’

‘Ain’t my problem.’

Carol hums her agreement but looks skeptical. ‘Like how I wasn’t your problem back in the day?’

Anger flashes over his features. The small eyes narrow even further and he makes a fist. The stone presses into his skin, leaving a painful imprint. ‘You didn’t say nothing, neither!’ He bites back, taking a couple of steps so he towers over her. ‘So don’t preach to me about speaking my mind when you ain’t doin’ it yourself, lady! That boy ain’t my problem!’

The sight would have been intimidating, Carol thinks as she looks up at her friend, were it not for the fact that she knows him too well. His words might cut deep, but he’d never touch her.

‘What are you so afraid of?’ she asks, cocking her head to the side.

He scoffs and jerks away. ‘Ain’t scared.’

There’s so much she wants to ask him, but mostly she wants to know this; have you ever been swept off your feet before?

She can’t imagine him any younger than this. In her mind, he’s never been a teenager, or a child. All that he is now, can’t possibly have come from someone small and fragile.

She still remembers all the times she ever fell in love. With movie stars, drummers, male models, and then the boy in her biology class, the guy who rode the same bus to college, the young man who took her to prom. The unreachable ones were easiest to love. She could love them without actually handing them her heart. It was safe.

The boys and guys from school were harder. There’s something utterly terrifying about handing someone your heart and trust them not to smash or scar it. Of course they did, in the end, but some scars are fond memories now. The fact that it ended doesn’t mean it wasn’t good while it lasted. Sometimes things just don’t work out.

In the end, she stuck with someone who never left scars. Instead, his words and actions formed festering wounds which still haven’t healed completely. No-one will ever touch her again, she won’t let them, but she’ll never love anyone like that again either. Never again will she allow someone to be in a position to hurt her like that.

It pains her that Daryl must have made that decision too, decades before she did.

‘Ain’t no damn sissy,’ Daryl mutters as he tosses another stone into the lake.

Carol laughs at that.

He turns around with an angry frown on his face, ‘what’re you brayin’ at?’

She shakes her head, ‘is that what you’re worried about? That we think you’re a sissy?’

‘Don’t give a damn about what you think!’

‘Oh, you can’t be serious,’ she says. ‘This group _survived_ because of you. Do you really think you caring about Benjamin will change our opinion of you?’

‘I’m done talking about this.’

‘Can you even admit it to yourself?’ She asks. ‘That you care about him?’

There’s a strange look on his face before he turns on his heels and walks off the rock, back towards the forest. His movements are jerky due to the angry tension in his back and arms. He takes a moment to load his bow, fingers slipping a couple times as he tries to get the bolt in place.

‘Daryl?’ Carol calls out as she scrambles to get her shoes and sweater back on. ‘Daryl, wait!’

He ignores her. The bolt slides into place and he hoist the bow over his shoulder, veering off the beaten track and disappearing between the trees.

‘Daryl!’ Carol hisses as she fumbles with her left shoe. She laces it hurriedly, glancing around to see if her voice has attracted any walkers. It’s mostly quiet. A few distant growls warn her that she’s never alone here, but they’re not an immediate threat. She takes off running after the hunter.

It takes her a couple of minutes to catch up. Daryl is fast when he wants to be, and only the fact that he makes any noise while walking tells her that he hadn’t meant to shake her off completely.

Still, she’s angry at him for leaving her behind like that. And for always walking away.

‘Hey,’ she grabs his arm and wheels him around. He lets her. ‘Look, I’m sorry. It’s just… you _deserve_ someone like that, Daryl. Someone who sees you for who you really are.’

‘And who’s that, huh?’ he asks, getting in her face. ‘Some fucked-up low-life from the wrong side of the fucking tracks? _Red-neck_ _trash_? Don’t think I don’t know what y’all think of me. What’re y’all sayin’ behind my back! Hell, you wouldn’t even let your little girl come near me, like I was some sort of fucking rapist, but I sure came in handy when you fucking lost her, didn’t I? I’m just easy to have around, ain’t that the truth? Putting food on the table for ya. Ain’t got no family, no kids, no whining wife or fucking husband. Lost my brother because all of you!’ He breathes heavily, one hand curled around his knife. ‘I should’ve split a long time ago.’

Carol smiles sadly, ‘is that what Merle told you all those years? That you’re trash?’

‘Don’t you dare talk about my brother, you stupid bitch,’ Daryl bites back, ‘y’all don’t know!’

‘I know that you loved him. And that he loved you.’ The man reels back. She knows he’s not so sure. ‘But he wasn’t good for you, Daryl. You’re so much better than he was. Did he tell you it was wrong to look at another man like that?’

Daryl tilts his chin higher in defiance but doesn’t answer.

‘It’s not,’ she reaches out to push a strand of hair behind his ear. ‘Look at me.’ Her hand curls around his cheek, ‘it’s not wrong.’

Something hardens in Daryl’s eye. He sets his jaw and leans in close. ‘I’m telling you,’ he whispers darkly. ‘ _It ain’t like that_. _I_ , sure as hell _ain't like that_.'


	7. Terminus

 

* * *

 

 

The group settles into a new routine rather quickly. One of them is always stationed on the roof in case anyone else wanders into town or a herd of walkers comes along. The rest can often be found in the main hall. Eugene found a chess set in one of the cabinets and teaches Glenn the game while Michonne watches. Rick walks his rounds while Tara reads to Judith.

Life in the library is easy. For now, they don't have to worry about hunger or thirst, but Daryl knows that it won't last. Every morning he leaves at first light to hunt for a couple of hours.

The woods surrounding the little town start to feel familiar to him. He knows most of the trails by heart now and even manages to set up a couple of snares which provide a steady supply of rabbit. He never comes across anything other than game or walkers but keeps a weather eye out for any signs of trespassers.

The others seems grateful for the fresh meat. It makes sure that the supplies don’t run too low too soon.

Rick sometimes joins him on his trips. He pretends to want to learn how to track but never asks any questions while Daryl doesn’t share his techniques, so really, he’s just there to escape the library for a couple of hours and to keep an eye on his friend. Daryl doesn’t mind much. Rick can move quietly and always stays behind Daryl so he doesn’t muck up the trails. They don’t really talk on the way back either. Small talk about the weather, Carl and the supplies, nothing more.

Benjamin has gone back to the talkative whirlwind of excitement he was when they first met. The incident with Gabriel had shut him up for a couple of hours but he seems to have shrugged it off, even though he never hangs around the Father anymore.

Sometimes he slips away on his own. They spot him roaming the town from the rooftop, watch how he ducks around corners and into houses. He’s broken some windows, making them easy to enter for anyone who still has a functioning brain. Every once in a while he returns with little nick-knack’s he thinks people will like. Darts for Carl, new hairbands for the girls, a plastic miniature horse after he’d learned how Rick had first rode into Atlanta city.

It earns him a warm place in everyone’s heart. Everyone, save Gabriel, seems to have an immediate fondness for the young man. The beaming smile can even break Michonne’s gloomy moods or make Rick rethink his decisions. Some days he’s allowed to take Carl with him on his little excursions, which everyone seems to take as the ultimate sign that he is one of them now.

It’s still early in the afternoon when Daryl returns from his latest hunt. He carries two rabbits and a bird on the string that’s slung over his shoulder.

Benjamin is on guard duty. He sits in the shade of the building, gazes out over the forest. There’s a gun in his lap, long fingers rubbing the metal carefully, adjusting and readjusting his grip.

‘Hey,’ he greets when Daryl hops onto the roof. ‘Happy hunting?’

‘Not enough to feed an army, but it’ll do.’

‘Good. Thank you.’ Benjamin turns back to the town. ‘When do you think you guys will leave?’

Daryl frowns at the _you guys_. The thought that Benjamin might not join them had never even crossed his mind. ‘Dunno,’ he answers. ‘When summer breaks, maybe. Longer days.’

Benjamin nods thoughtfully, ‘you should check out the cars in town. I didn’t really look any further once I’d found one that was still working and had some gas in it. It would be easier.’

‘Suppose.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘I think Rick’s planning to go South,’ Daryl walks over to where the man is sitting and dumps his stuff next to him before sagging down on the floor. His shoulders ache from the heavy bow and he stretches to soothe the muscles. ‘Aren’t ya coming with us?’

Benjamin glances at him, ‘would you want me to?’

‘Don’t care,’ Daryl says automatically and the other man doesn’t know him well enough to spot the lie. ‘Safer to travel in groups.’

‘I’m not going South,’ the younger man says. ‘Before… Before I lost my group, we were heading towards this safety zone. We got a good way, I don’t think it’s very far, though I haven’t been able to find any on the last maps or flyers they handed out. You know, the ones with the quarantine zones? It wasn’t on there. Maybe it was built later, by survivors. We were on the last train out of the red zone. They told us to head to that camp.’

Daryl bites his thumb. Him and Merle had been heading towards one of the quarantine zones in Atlanta when they’d found out that the whole city had fallen. So instead they hung out with Carol’s family, Lori and Carl, Shane, all the others. He remembers how the city had burned before his eyes. The smell of smoke. The screams.

‘What camp is that?’ he asks to drive the memories away.

‘Terminus.’

Daryl’s heart stutters to a halt as bile rises in his throat. It’s difficult to breathe, suddenly. His hands shake as fear courses through his veins.

Benjamin doesn’t notice. He isn’t looking at the red-neck. ‘They said it was one of the last refugee camps. We were heading there by train, but…’ he stops for a moment, biting his lower lip. ‘It’s near the tracks, so it should be easy to find, right? Suppose they must have rigged up some signs along the way.’

‘It’s gone,’ Daryl manages, more as a reminder to himself.

‘Hmm?’ Benjamin turns to him now, ‘what do you mean, gone? The signs?’

‘The camp. It fell.’

‘No, the soldiers, they said to go to-‘

‘I’m tellin’ you; it’s gone,’ Daryl cuts in harshly. ‘All of it.’

Benjamin opens his mouth and then closes it again. He frowns a little, looking more lost than Daryl’s ever seen. There’s astonishment in his eyes, hidden beneath all the green of his irises. In the black of his pupils, Daryl can see a reflection of himself.

‘It wasn’t..’ Daryl starts and then halts, needing Benjamin to understand. ‘We went to Terminus. You were right, they’d rigged up signs all along the tracks, to lead people back to that place. They said it was safe. A sanctuary for all. Those who arrive, survive. But when we got there, it was already gone.’

‘It was overrun?’

‘No. There were big-ass fences. Enough men to guard them.’

Benjamin draws his knees to his chest, looping his arms around them. ‘What happened?’

Daryl shrugs, ‘lot of bad stuff went down there.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Why? It fell, ‘s all ya need to know.’ He bites on the nail of his thumb and makes sure not to meet the younger man’s eye.

‘My group died trying to reach that place,’ Benjamin says. ‘For weeks, _months_ , all we thought was; if we can just get to that place. If we can just pull through now, we’ll be save inside Terminus. And… it was all for nothing? They _died_ for nothing?’

‘Maybe,’ Daryl answers, because Terminus was doomed the day it was first taken, but Benjamin still ended up on their path, so maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t for nothing after all. ‘It was a good place, once. A sanctuary, a community of people seeking refuge. It worked for a while, but it didn’t last. Others came. They took over the town. Raped. Killed. After a while the original occupants managed to reclaim the place.’ Daryl lets his head thud against the wall behind him. He looks up at the sky. Clouds drift over the town, allowing the sun to make brief appearances every couple of minutes. ‘We saw the signs. Our group had been split up after we had to abandon our last home and we were trying to find each other. Seemed like the perfect place. We knew every single one of us would head there if they saw the signs, so we followed the tracks.’

Those moments replay in his head all the time. How they'd followed the tracks, jumped the fence, walked right into that hell-hole. And all the while he wonders; _how did I not see?_

Benjamin uncurls himself and hops down the ledge. He sits down next to his new friend, posture wary but eyes bright.

‘They offered us food,’ Daryl murmurs as he inspects his nails. ‘Shelter, protection, all of that. This guy, Gareth, he ran the place, welcomed us with open arms. Let us keep our guns, knives, made us feel safe, ya know?’ He picks at the skin between his left thumb and index finger, where the cigarette burns are still visible. ‘Was stupid to just walk in.’

‘You were trying to find your family.’

‘Yeah.’ He falls silent. The contrast with Terminus and the library could not have been greater, but his mind still lingers in that dark place. Out of the corner of his eye he can still see Glenn’s desperate looks, the anger on Rick’s face. His wrists are burning from invisible rope while his heartbeat jumps to his throat. His mouth tastes like the gag he was forced to wear.

‘What happened?’ Benjamin asks.

‘We got out.’

‘Just like that?’

Daryl huffs but doesn’t say anything.

‘You said…’ Benjamin frowns a little, ‘you said they took back the place. I guess they didn’t turn it back into the sanctuary it was before, right? What did they do?’

‘Survive.’ The hunter closes his eyes for a moment but soon snaps them open again. He can still see the trench before him, the draining pipe where his blood was meant to splatter into. The cold of the concrete still seeps into his knees. The stench of fresh human meat hanging out to dry invades all his senses.

‘How?’

Daryl buries his face in his hands, dragging his nails over his skin just to not feel anything else. He doesn’t want to tell Benjamin about what happened to them there, what they saw. The young man’s too bright, too optimistic to be tainted by something so horrible as Terminus.

‘Tell me what happened. Daryl, please. I need to know.’

‘Why?’ Daryl asks through his hands. The palms press into his eyes. Stars fill his vision. ‘That place fell. They were bad people. I’m sorry about your people, but they died trying to get to hell. Why would you need to know more than that?’

Benjamin looks at him even though Daryl can’t see. ‘Please.’

Daryl lowers his hands and stares at his nails. They’re cleaner than they usually are now that he gets to bathe on a more regular basis. There’s some grime under his nails, mostly dirt from where he’d inspected some tracks left by game. He doesn’t really care, but tries to get rid of it, picking at it with the nails from his other hand. On some days, he thinks he can still see traces of blood on them. He knows he’ll never get his hands clean again. Some things just don’t wash off.

‘Rick was first to notice,’ he says before he even knows how and whether he wants to tell the tale. ‘They had our stuff, Glenn’s watch, my poncho, riot gear from the prison. I hadn’t even spotted it yet, but he knew something was off with that place the moment we were led into the courtyard. Too few people, I think.’ He shrugs, ‘don’t matter. We pulled our guns on them, they did the same with us. We ran, but… They were pullin’ the strings, stopped us at every turn but the ones they wanted us to take. Pigs to slaughter.’

Benjamin makes an understanding noise to urge him on.

‘Got stuffed in an old train car. The others were held there too.’

‘Must have been great to see them again, despite the circumstances.’

Daryl grunts, shifting a bit. ‘We started to search for stuff we could use. Wasn’t much. They came to take some of us to another building. Rick, Glenn, Bob, me too. Couple of others from another car we didn’t know. There was a table, on the side, it… There was a body on it, dead. They were chopping him up.’

The muscles in Benjamin’s arm tighten as if he’s bracing himself.

‘They made us kneel right next to each other. Two guys, they… They started at the other end of the line, with the people we didn’t know. Bashed their skulls with a baseball bat, then slid their throats. One by one.’ Daryl scratches at his cheek where the gag had burned his skin. ‘Could see them coming closer, the blood went down the drain, it… Four died, then they got to Glenn.’ He bites his thumb now, staring at his boots. He feels sick.

‘One of you got free?’

‘Yeah. There was an explosion outside, it distracted them. Rick had this piece of wood in his sock, cut his restraints then went for the two pricks, took them down and got us free. We went to find the others. There was this room, like a drying area for meat. There were chains everywhere, with...' He shakes his head, bites his thumb again, hard enough to hurt. 'They cut people up, hung them out to dry. There were pieces everywhere, bloody knives, machetes. We took the weapons, got the hell out of there.'

Benjamin presses his fist to his mouth and then looks at Daryl again, 'cannibalism?' he asks. 'They fucking _ate_ people?'

'Sick fucks. Turns out that the people who'd invaded the camp had done the same. Monkey see, monkey do.'

'My God,' Benjamin's head thuds against the wall. 'You got back to the others?'

Daryl nods, 'fought our way out. Killed as many as we could, left them to turn. Some gas tank had exploded and destroyed some of the fences. A herd of walkers was streamin’ in. A lot of them died. We ran, climbed the fence. Barely made it out. We'd buried some supplies before going into the camp, you know, just to be cautious, some guns and ammo. Dug that up and split.'

Benjamin stays quiet for a while. It makes Daryl uncomfortable.

'It was Carol,' he say to break the silence. 'She got us out.'

'She wasn't with you?'

'No. She'd been separated from us before. She found Tyreese and Judith on the road and decided to help them get back to us. She…Don't matter. She shot the tank and caused the explosion. Saved all our asses.' He scrapes the sole of his boot over the roof. A tiny smile graces his features. ‘Got me my bow back.’

‘One hell of a woman. She took on a whole camp on her own?’

‘Yeah. You have no idea.’

Benjamin laughs, ‘she seems so… fragile? Damn. Remind me to never get on her bad side.’

Daryl smirks, ‘ _fragile_? Pssh, no way in hell.’

‘You two seem pretty close,’ the younger man muses.

'She's a good one, yeah.'

'Just a good one?'

Daryl finally glances at his friend and narrows his eyes, 'what're ya askin’?'

Benjamin laughs and knocks their shoulders together, 'if I plan to harass you further with my sexual advances, am I going to get stabbed for hitting on her boyfriend or her adopted brother?'

The hunter can't help but snort at that, 'she ain't going to stab your ass for nothing. No-one is.'

'That's not really an answers to my pathetic attempt at asking whether you're seeing her.'

'I'm not.'

Benjamin nods, 'okay. Good.'

'Think you would have noticed by now if I had a psychotic girlfriend you needed to worry about,' Daryl says. 'You're not being very subtle.'

'All lion, no fox. That's me in a nutshell.'

Daryl hides his smirk by looking away. The memories of Terminus start to fade away. Warmth is starting to seep back in his bones, washing out all traces that place left in his mind. He relaxes against the wall, staring out over the roof and the forest beyond. The tips of the trees move in the breeze. There's nothing else in sight. No highways, no chimneys, no city dooming in the distance. Nothing but nature surrounds them.

Benjamin's hand moves to touch his arm. Fingers brush against the hairs on his skin as he traces bones and muscles. It tickles slightly but Daryl wills himself to sit still. The touch feels foreign. Not many people touch him. A friendly pat on the stomach or back from Rick is all he usually allows, though Carol is a noticeable exception. The others are always held at arms-length. Maybe that’s why his first instinct now is to jerk his arm away from the other guy. The touch registers as _danger_.

But the fingers just move down towards his wrist, the back of his hand, slide between his own fingers. Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl watches how Benjamin grasps his hand. The palm of the smaller hand presses against the back of his.

He looks away.

Benjamin stiffens and starts to pull back.

Daryl closes his hand and traps the fingers between his own, holding on.


	8. Sacred words

 

* * *

 

 

The nightmare drowns him in memories of Terminus. He finds himself alone in one of the corridors of the large complex. It's dark. He doesn't know where he's supposed to go but starts down the hallway. Faint echoes of his footsteps mingle with growls of approaching walkers. His heart-rate speeds up in time with his pace. He starts to run, rounding corner after corner without getting anywhere.

A piercing scream cuts through the background noise. Rick, he thinks. Or maybe Glenn. It doesn't matter who anyway, he knows it's one of his brothers.

Fear makes him feel sick to the stomach. He comes to a door, bursts through it to stumble into a large drying room. Bodies hang from metal chains. There's blood everywhere. Men. Women. Some children too. He forces himself to look at the faces but doesn't recognize them.

Another scream forces him to move on. He needs to find his family. He needs to get them out of that damn train car and make sure that they are okay. The blood makes the floor slippery. He leaves bloody footprints in the next corridor.

He passes the place where he was made to kneel. Four bodies bleed out in the drain. The smell of death makes him gag. With his nose pressed into the crook of his arm he heads towards the door, out into the courtyard.

A walker immediately grabs his shoulder, rotting teeth snapping near his neck, nails scraping over his skin. He manages to struggle free, smash the head against the wall until the skull crumbles beneath his hands. He staggers, manages to find his footing again, and takes off running towards the train car.

When he gets there, he knows he's too late.

The door is open. Growls come from within. He slowly walks over, climbing the small set of stairs before stepping into the car.

His family lies dead.

Rick is the first to wake. He sits up, eyes dazed and movements all wrong. He's too pale. Dead.

Daryl must have made a noise because his brother turns to him, gets up and drags his body forwards.

Fear and grief forces him to remain standing. He doesn't run. Can't leave them. Doesn't want to.

His brother grabs his shoulders.

He doesn't fight it. But screams.

Screams and screams and screams.

 

'Wake up!'

His eyes snap open and there's a body looming over him. Hands on his arm and shoulder, holding him down, nails digging into his flesh and muscles.

One arm is still free. His right. He lashes out, his hand balled into a fist. It collides with a mouth. He can feel teeth against his knuckles. A sickening crunch, warmth of blood and saliva.

'Ah, oh _fuck_!'

The body reels backwards as the hands let go of him. It's dark, just as Terminus had been moments ago. In the dark, however, he can make out the shocking brightness of Benjamin's hair. He sits up, breathing heavily, to see the younger man standing a couple steps away from him, clutching his mouth.

Realization dawns. He recognizes the library, now a land of unfamiliar shadows. The couch beneath his hands, the chandeliers high above him.

'Jesus Christ,' Benjamin mutters. He spits on the floor. The stain is dark. Blood.

Daryl swings his legs off the couch and puts his head in his hands in an effort to catch his breath. The shirt he's wearing is soaked with sweat.

There's a noise upstairs, someone comes running.

'What's wrong?' Maggie. She leans over the banister. 'Daryl? Daryl!'

'It's nothing,' Benjamin answers. His words sound wet with blood. 'He's fine. Go back to sleep, Mags.'

She refuses, 'Daryl?' she calls again, worry and a sense of desperation coloring her voice.

'I'm fine,' he calls back as he tries to push the nausea of the rude awakening down.

'Want me to come down?'

'No. It was... I'm fine.'

There's a short silence during which she seems to contemplate his answer. 'Okay,' she decides. 'You can come up here, you know. There's plenty of room.'

Daryl looks at Benjamin. His eyes slowly get used to the darkness. He watches how the other man probes at his teeth and lips, finding the flesh split but dentals in perfect working order. He flashes a bloody grin at the hunter as he stands up straight again.

'Thanks,' Daryl answers, 'but we're good.'

'Okay then. Well, good night.'

'Good night, Mags,' Benjamin calls out after her before spitting on the floor again and running his tongue over his teeth. He laughs softly and falls down on the couch next to his friend. 'Damn, one hell of a right hook you got there, Daryl Dixon.' he touches his front teeth again. 'Not really how I'd imagined you'd get your hands on me.'

Daryl hides his face behind his hands.

'Not that I was really getting anywhere, anyway. Should I consider this as Second Base with you?'

'Stop,' Daryl murmurs. He can't believe he's actually made him bleed. He feels sick again.

'I'll wear it like a badge of honor,' Benjamin laughs.

'Shut the fuck up!'

The blond turns to look at him, picking up on his anguish. He bumps their shoulders together lightly. 'Hey, it was just an accident. I'm fine. Probably sport a majestic bruise in the morning but... 't was stupid of me to try to wake you up like that anyway. Should have seen it coming.'

'Don't,' Daryl snaps as he stands up abruptly. The words sound too familiar. He can't let Benjamin rationalize this. It wasn't his fault. He didn't deserve it. Just like he himself hadn't deserved it, all those years ago.

'What? Hey, come on, it was just an accident!'

'Go back to sleep,' he orders as he grabs his bow and walks away.

Benjamin watches him go with slumped shoulders. His hand moves to touch the tender spot on his jaw as his gaze follows his friend.

 

Rick is on watch duty. He turns at the sound of the hatch opening and closing. 'Hey,' he says softly as Daryl joins him on the roof. 'Couldn't sleep?'

The hunter shrugs. 'I can take your shift if ya want.'

'No, I'm good. Thanks.' He eyes his brother for a moment. 'Wouldn't mind the company, though.'

Daryl nods and scuffs his boot on the edge of the roof. They watch out over the little town in silence. Walkers shuffle past on the streets below, oblivious to the two men high above them.

'This is a good place,' Rick says suddenly. 'Not just because of the food or water. We shouldn't stay out on the road for too long. It’s... It starts to mess with your head after a while, you know? Always being on the run.'

'Didn't have much of a choice.'

'Suppose not. Still, it's good we've found this place. Let's us catch our breaths, straighten our minds.' Rick runs a hand through his hair and looks at Daryl. 'I'm glad you're getting on better with Benjamin, too. Means a lot to me that you tried. He's a good guy.'

Daryl huffs and looks away.

'I could tell him to back off a bit, you know. Give you some space.'

Daryl bites his lip and wonders why everyone thinks that _he_ is the one that needs to be protected. Maybe they've already tried to warn Benjamin about who is he, what kind of man, and the blond just ignored their warnings. That sounds like him, Daryl thinks moodily.

‘Punched him in the mouth.’

Rick’s eyes widen fractionally and he shifts his weight to his other foot, ‘excuse me?’

‘I punched him in the mouth,’ Daryl repeats.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t matter.’ Daryl’s hands itch for a cigarette. He stuffs them in his pockets instead and sets his jaw stubbornly.

Rick rounds on him, head cocked to the side, ‘I think it does. Tell me what happened.’ He steps closer when Daryl scoffs at that, ‘what? I’m supposed to believe you just go ‘round knocking people’s teeth in? That isn’t you.’

‘What do you know about it, Atlanta?’ Daryl snaps.

‘Nothing, so why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on?’

Daryl brushes his hair in front of his eyes and kicks one of his shoes against the other.

‘Did he say something?’ Rick urges, ‘did he touch…’

‘No,’ Daryl cuts him off, ‘no, nothin’ like that, man, he just… I had a nightmare and he tried to… I punched him.’ His shoulder hunch and he looks away so he doesn’t have to look at his friend. There’s shame in his posture, dread in his eyes. ‘This afternoon, he was talking about how he was thinking about going to Terminus. Thought it was a sanctuary.’

Rick winces.

‘I told him what went down there.’

The former sheriff nods and looks down at his shoes, ‘that’s what your nightmare was about? Terminus?’

‘Almost died there,’ Daryl murmurs defensively.

‘But we didn’t.’

‘No. Fought like hell just to end up in another shit hole.’

Rick hums in agreement, ‘but we got Judith back. And Carol.’

‘Yeah.’ Daryl wipes his nose on his arm just to have something to do or hide behind. ‘He tried to wake me up, put his hands on me, and I just… I didn’t think. Just lashed out. Hit him in the mouth. He was bleeding.’

‘Sounds like an accident,’ Rick says. ‘You weren’t thinking straight. Is he upset?’

Daryl looks at Rick, ‘no. He was laughing and joking about it seconds later. He said that’s not how he’d imagined how I’d put my hands on him.’

Rick’s face breaks out in a fond grin.

‘It’s not funny!’ Daryl hisses through his teeth, stepping forward.

‘What? It was an _accident_! He got that. Just kiss and make up, all right?’ Rick grins teasingly. ‘Ah, come on,’ he says when Daryl glares, ‘you gave him a split lip, is he missing a tooth?’

‘No.’

‘Then you weren’t even trying.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Daryl says and then adds ‘this time.’

Rick leans back on his heels and narrows his eyes at his friend, ‘what? You’re worried that next time it won’t be an accident? I thought you were getting along fine now.’

‘’s not what I mean. Never mind, man.’ He stretches and leans over the edge of the roof to look at the front doors. A couple of walkers shuffle past but pay no special attention to the building. ‘We should scout the town tomorrow for some cars.’

‘All right,’ Rick agrees. ‘You up for it?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ he mutters as he hitches his bow higher.  ‘Gonna need Glenn, too. He’s gotten good at kick-starting the damn things.’

'All right,' Rick says again, with a curt nod this time. 'Go get some sleep. You look like shit.'

Daryl nods too and gives him a pat on the shoulder before walking away.

As he makes his way back to the first floor, he thinks about the sight of Benjamin, hunched over and spitting blood onto the floor.

He'd been lying when he'd said that he didn't read any books. There's one, hidden on the bottom of his bag, which he sometimes reads during the breaks he takes when he's out hunting. It talks about how the scars will never fade but no longer have to mark his future. How it's a vicious cycle he needs to break.

He hops down the bookcases and walks over to the couches.

Benjamin is reading a book, face close to the pages to be able to decipher the words in the dim light of the night.

He walks right over, stealing himself, and mumbles, ‘hey.’

‘Hello,’ Benjamin greets with a smile. The blood is gone. ‘You good?’

‘Yeah, I just... I’m sorry, okay? For hitting ya like that.’ The words feel foreign on his tongue. If Merle had been here, he would have stomped his ass for using them. _Never apologize_. Sacred words for the Dixon men.

‘Okay,’ Benjamin says as he sits up. ‘It’s fine. I’m sorry for touching you, but you wouldn’t wake up. Next time, I’ll drop a book on your face instead.’

One of the corners of Daryl’s mouth turns upwards in a lopsided grin. ‘Sure thing,’ he answers. ‘We’re going to try and rig up some cars tomorrow. You down with that?’

The young man puts the book away, ‘sure.’ He’s quiet for a moment and then asks: ‘Did you own a car before all this?’

‘Beat up pick-up,’ Daryl answers in the dark. ‘You?’

‘No. Never even got my license. We used to live in a big city, growing up. No parking, good public transport, so there was no point really. Then I moved to college, had a campus so I never really had to go far. Hitched rides, mostly, if we ever got off site. Didn’t have money for a car anyways.’

‘Hmm,’ Daryl stretches and folds one arm beneath his head. ‘We moved around a lot, before, so the truck was good for that. Just threw our stuff in the back, upped and left.’ He bites his nail, ‘my brother had a motorcycle, let me ride it sometimes. Loved the damn thing. We took it with us when it all went down. I lost it when the prison fell. Damn shame.’

Benjamin looks over, ‘what happened to your brother?’

‘Nothing good.’

Benjamin lets himself fall onto his back and kicks his feet up onto the couch. He’s silent for a couple of minutes. Then he shifts, rolling onto his side to look at Daryl in the darkness. ‘I’ve got something to show you tomorrow. Well, two things, actually, and only one of them is good. Okay?’

Daryl turns his head towards his friend, even though he can’t quite see him. ‘All right.’


	9. Charlotte

 

* * *

 

 

Finding suitable cars turns out not to be an easy task. There are no closed off car parks which they can clear of walkers so they can take their time to inspect the vehicles and think of a way to get them started. No neat rows of keys and plate numbers to choose from.

Instead, Daryl, Glenn and Rick rush through the streets while trying to assess the cars. They find a good truck, but can’t find the keys and Glenn has trouble with the wiring. Even with Daryl’s shifty knowledge of car theft they can’t get it to work. Walkers quickly start to take notice, forcing them to move on to another part of town.

Eventually they hit a gold mine in one of the garages. There’s a brand-new looking car and a pick-up truck. The keys of the car hang on a little hook near the door. Daryl silently thanks human stupidity, or the strange faith in neighbors small towns bring about. This would have been easy pickings even if the goddamn apocalypse hadn’t come around.

Both of the cars are low on gas. While Glenn works on getting the truck up and running, Daryl and Rick use the jerry cans Benjamin had given them earlier today to steal gas from the cars on the roads. It takes a long time. Most of the gas has gone bad within the tanks. When they’ve only got half a canister after an hour, they call it a day and figure that they’ll need to find a way to raid the gas station on the main road. Benjamin hadn’t been able to do it now that the pumps are down, but maybe Eugene, Rosita or Abraham know a way.

It’s almost noon when they meet up with Maggie, Michonne and Benjamin again. They’ve been transferring some of the supplies to the car Benjamin had already confiscated. The back is now stuffed with clothes, some jugs of water and ammunition that doesn’t go with the guns they have.

‘It’s looking good,’ Rick comments as he claps Benjamin on the shoulder. ‘You found the keys?’

‘Guy was still trapped inside. Just needed a kick-start and some gas.’ Benjamin runs a hand through his hair, ‘Took a while to get the stain out of the upholstery, but... you know, didn’t have much else to do.’

‘Looks good,’ Rick repeats as he glances inside. ‘Let’s get back to the others, figure out a way to get that gas.’

‘Yeah, err,’ Benjamin glances at Daryl, who raises his chin a bit in confirmation, ‘you go ahead without us, I just wanted to... erm, show Daryl something. Err, something on the other side of town, I mean, you guys just, err, go, I guess.’

Maggie giggles and hides her face in Glenn’s shoulder while Michonne smirks openly.

‘ _Right_ ,’ Rick drawls. ‘Well, take your time.’ He laughs at the glare he gets from the hunter. ‘Enjoy yourselves.’

To add insult to injury, Benjamin blushes a deep scarlet as the others get ready to hit the road again.

‘Ain’t like that,’ Daryl grouses as Maggie touches his shoulder in a wordless goodbye. She just laughs and shakes her head.

‘So you ain’t coming?’ Glenn asks in a mimic of Daryl’s own quip back at the prison watchtower.

‘Piss off.’

Their laughter only fades as they round the corner and disappear from sight.

Daryl glances at his friend, who looks mortified. ‘Well, that was smooth of ya.’

‘What did you want me to say?’ Benjamin cries out, covering his face with his hands. They barely cover the starting grin. ‘I’m gonna show Daryl some good places to _hunt_? How believable would that have been? And if I’d told them that we were going on a supply run, the others might have joined us, and I’d rather they didn’t. The thing I want to show you? It’s kind of personal.’ He winces and then lowers his hands, ‘Oh, stop smirking. Come on, it’s this way.’

 

The sun is high in the sky when they walk side by side through the gardens of one of the neighborhoods. The temperature has gone down over the last couple of days due to a cold Northern wind. It bites at their sun-kissed skin, but gives relief from the unrelenting heat inside the library. Clouds slowly drift overhead as they jump over fences and slip through gates.

The gardens are overgrowing. Their feet get snatched by tall grass and roots, green fingers reaching out from the earth, but they’re used to it by now. Sometimes they still stumble over a toy a child must have left outside during the last days before the final outbreak.

Benjamin walks a couple of steps in front of Daryl, leading the way. There’s a knife in his hand in case any walkers cross their path, but his walk is relaxed. He looks over his shoulder for a second, ‘I talked to Rick the other day. He made me realize that, well, you don’t really know anything about me. You must have a million questions.’

Daryl shrugs.

‘It’s funny, he said that I never shut up but still manage to not say anything about myself. I suppose he’s right. I mean, a lot of it no longer matters anyway. Who cares that I used to live in Boston, went to college, worked at the campus coffee shop? Doesn’t mean anything anymore. And the things that do matter, they’re not easy to say.’

Daryl grunts in agreement.

‘My sister was two years younger than me. When the outbreak happened, she was serving in the army and stationed near my college town. First she told me to just follow general policy, you know, wash your hands, stay indoors, but it became pretty clear that it was going bad no matter what we did, so she came to get me. The disease just kept spreading and spreading, soon our entire county was written off. We had to evacuate. They had these large trains, freight trains, just stuffed with people. It was crazy. Everyone wanted to get the hell out of there, they just kept pushing, shoving, trying to pull people off to get their spot.’

Daryl can’t see Benjamin’s expression. The younger man is still walking a couple of paces ahead of him. His shoulders are squared and the grip on his knife has turned his fingers white. They round a corner, cutting through an alley and a small playground.

‘I don’t know who gave the order, but the train started to move suddenly. People panicked. There just wasn’t room for everyone. We tried to get as much of them inside our car, but... People who’d climbed on top of the train fell off, dragged others with them. They got overrun. We could... We could hear them, beneath the wheels, you know, on the tracks. It was horrible. I’d never seen so many people die.’ Benjamin checks the roads before crossing quickly, ducking into another row of gardens. He sheets his knife to boost Daryl up to one of the stone walls and then does a run-up to grab his friends hand and gets hoisted up. They jump down on the other side, Daryl with a soft grunt but Benjamin as silently as a cat. Once they continue their path, Benjamin picks the story up again. ‘Our train was bound for Washington. We hit a checkpoint at around midnight. The train stopped, some soldiers got on. I don’t know what happened, exactly. Maybe someone had been bit or scratched, or whatever, but…’ Benjamin shrugs, ‘they opened fire. It sounded like hail, you know, or firecrackers, it was so far away, on the other side of the train, but then the screaming started. People tried to flee. A couple of guys got our doors open. My sister dragged me towards the woods on the opposite side of the tracks. We watches as they moved through the train. Car after car after car. It was a massacre. It’s unbelievable what fear does to people. Or selfishness.’

He shakes his head and sucks on his teeth for a second, then flashes Daryl a bitter smile. ‘My sister rounded up a couple of families. They had little kids with them. She got them out and to safety. She was good like that. Great, like that. She led us into the woods, away from the chaos of the train and the fighting that was going on. We just ran. After a couple of miles, we found a little cabin. Abandoned, and we hid there while she went back for others. She returned with some supplies instead.’

He flexes his right foot to show off the army boots, ‘don’t know which poor fuck died in these, but they’ve served me better. The guns too. Knifes. She taught me how to use them. Taught me everything I needed to know to survive.’ He laughs softly, shaking his head. ‘My little sister. She was so much better than me.

‘Some of the families left to find their own way, but most stayed with us. The soldiers on the train had talked about this place, Terminus. Damn long walk, but we figured it would be our best chance. My parents lived on the other side of the country, there was no way we were ever going to reach them. They’re probably dead. I hope they are.’ Benjamin pulls on the straps of his backpack. ‘I hope they didn’t have to see any of this.’

Daryl isn’t sure what to do. A part of him wants to reach out, make them stop walking so he can face his friend properly. To show that he is listening, that he’s sorry, but he doesn’t know whether the touch would be welcome. So he just follows the younger man. Always one step behind him.

‘We camped,’ Benjamin continues. ‘Got a long way, too. And then, one night, a huge group of biters tore through our little campsite. So many people died. The screams woke me up. Josh and Tina. Dave, Julia, Mary and Laurent. Phillip. Emma. Denise. I tried to get to Sammy. She was just four years old, but I was too late. There were so many, they were fucking everywhere. My sister had to drag me away. We ran. We just ran and didn’t look back.’

The green eyes are clouded with tears but he sets his jaw and pushes on.

‘We reached this town by the morning. She fought our way here all by herself, I was... I was just out of it. This is it,’ Benjamin says as they walk into the front garden of a small white house. It has a porch with a rocking chair on it. Wild flowers grow on the lawn. It would have been a quaint little place before the outbreak, Daryl thinks. ‘She brought me into this house. I think it reminded her of our childhood home. She cleared it while I just sat here on the porch. She saved my life a thousand times over. Probably since fucking birth. No-one ever guessed she was the youngest, you know? She was fierce.’

Daryl follows him up on to the porch and then into the house. The living room is completely destroyed. There’s broken furniture everywhere. Blood on the floor boards. The couch ripped apart. One of the walls has been cleared of any paintings and ornaments. With a knife, a name has been carved into the plaster. Large, elegant, flowing letters.

_Charlotte_.

Benjamin bites his lower lip as he looks at the carving.

‘She got me inside. Here. She... Got me food, water. Gave me her gun. Jacket.’ He says, wrapping his arms around himself, ‘told me to go to sleep. I was... I just... I never saw.’ He sinks down to sit on his hunches and pulls his knife out. He balances the blade on the tip, spinning the handle and then tapping it onto the floorboard, just to have something to do with his hands. ‘Turns out she was bit. The gunshot woke me up.’

He sighs and rubs a hand through the blond air, nails scraping over his skull.

‘She’d taken her own life so I wouldn’t have to. My little sister.’ He shakes his head, letting it hang in sorrow. ‘She probably knew I wouldn’t have done it. Couldn’t. She was always telling me to grow a fucking spine,’ he laughs humorlessly, hands shaking and eyes clouded over.

Daryl looks around the room. His eye falls on the backdoor, which leads to a small garden. It’s the only one in the entire neighborhood which hasn’t been overgrown. Flowers bloom everywhere but on a small patch at the very back. The earth is disturbed there.

He’s seen enough apocalyptic graves to recognize them from afar.

‘It’s not fair,’ Benjamin says softly, eyeing his knife. ‘It should have been me. I was useless during the evacuation. Newborns cry less than I did. She never even blinked, just got on with her work. Protect and serve, and all that. She might have abandoned her post, but at least she tried to protect our people. She saved a lot of lives that night.’ He shrugs, ‘she saved mine. I’m just sorry I couldn’t do the same for her.’

‘This isn’t on you.’

Benjamin puts the knife away and straightens up, meeting Daryl’s eye. ‘Of course it is. She was my baby sister. I had one task: look after her, and I failed dramatically. I know she didn’t see it like that, though. She was nice like that.’ He smiles, ‘fierce, fearless, nice. Hell, she was all that but no angel. She used to steal my pocket money so she could buy candy at school. There was always a dollar missing, no matter where I hid it.’

Daryl gives him a hesitant smile.

Benjamin answers it. ‘I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but I’ve had months to think about it. This is on me. And I’m so sorry, but she’s gone now. She wouldn’t have wanted me to wither away, swallowing in guilt and grief. She’d kick me out of heaven if she knew I’d done that.’ He grins and pulls at the straps of his backpack, ‘so, that’s why I stayed. I know you guys have been gossiping.’

‘Weren’t _gossiping_ …’

Benjamin shoves Daryl’s shoulder playfully, ‘were too. Anyway, now you know. I’m not leaving her.’

Daryl presses his lips together to prevent himself from saying something crude.

‘I’m _not_ ,’ Benjamin stressed when he catches the hunter’s expression. ‘I don’t care how stupid you think that is.’ He hitches his backpack higher, ‘come on, I’ve got something else to show you. It’s less depressing than this. Promise.’

 

The younger man leads him to another house, a couple blocks over. They’re silent as they walk the streets, both lost in thought. The sharp knife buries itself in the skull of a walker who’d been lurking around a corner. As Benjamin pulls the knife back out, his shirt shifts a bit and Daryl can see a chain around the pale neck. It’s not the first time he’s noticed the dog-tags. They always catch the light when Benjamin changes shirts and they clink together as he jumps over low obstacles. Only now, he knows whose name is etched in the metal.

They reach a small garage. It’s locked with a padlock and Benjamin kneels beside it, digging the key out of his pocket.

‘I’m gonna need you to close your eyes.’

Daryl glares at him.

‘Don’t you trust me?’ Benjamin laughs as he unlocks the door and gets back up. ‘Come on, there’s nothing around. Five seconds, tops.’

‘Get me killed and Rick will stomp your ass.’

The young man laughs as Daryl closes his eyes, ‘oh, he’ll do much worse things to me than that.’

Daryl listens as the younger man grunts and pulls the garage door up. It makes a lot of noise, but suddenly there are warm hands on his shoulder, slowly dragging him forward.

‘A bit more,’ Benjamin urges as they step into the shadows of the garage, ‘like that, stop. Keep your eyes closed, let me get the door.'

It rattles behind them and thuds closed.

‘Fuck,’ Benjamin says softly, his voice coming from right in front of Daryl. He can feel the other man stepping closer, body heat radiating between them. A hand folds over his eyes, ‘no peeking.’

The words dance over Daryl’s lips. He tilts his chin up a bit, nose brushing against Benjamin’s.

‘I’m not sure you’ll like it,’ Benjamin says hesitantly. ‘I mean, it’s broken… I thought maybe I could fix it, you know, but… There’s only so much you can learn from books. I think I just fucked it up worse, to be honest. At first it was just a weird noise, but now it won’t start at all and-‘

‘Gonna shut up and lemme see what you’re blabbering about?’

Daryl can practically feel the smile of his friend, so close to his lips.

‘Yeah, sorry, it’s just… didn’t wanna get your hopes up. Or, I mean, I’m not even sure you’ll like it so… Sorry. Here.’ The hand falls away and Benjamin steps aside. ‘Oh God, this is so stupid, you didn’t even say you-‘

Daryl opens his eyes.

And sees the motorcycle.  


	10. Dog owner

 

* * *

 

 

‘Hey, Rick?’ Carol climbs up the ladder and slips through the hatch to get on to the roof.

The former sheriff is looking out over the town. They’ve found a set of binoculars in an attic somewhere and he uses them to keep an eye on his family. Some of them are roaming the streets, searching through houses just to have something to do while others clear walkers around the library.

He turns at his own name and raises his eyebrows at Carol questioningly.

‘Have you seen Daryl?’

‘He left early this morning, just after sunrise. Apparently there’s a doe out there that is _mocking_ him.’

‘He said that?’ Carol asks with a small laugh.

‘Yeah. He’s been tracking it for days now but no luck. Told us all about it during dinner last night.’ Carol lifts an eyebrow and Rick grins back, ‘okay, fine,’ he concedes, ‘Benjamin told us all about it, but Daryl must have told him, so that’s basically the same thing nowadays, huh? Thick as thieves those two.’

‘They could be good for each other,’ Carol muses as she leans against the ridge.

‘If Daryl just got over his damn pride,’ Rick agrees. ‘That boy has been chasing him since the start. The hard-to-get act is getting old.’

‘I don’t think his pride is the problem.’

The leader of their little family eyes her for a moment, turning slightly to face her.

She shakes her head and then hugs herself, arms folded around her midriff. ‘You think he got those scars because he forgot to take out the trash?’

Rick shift on his feet uncomfortably, ‘I don’t know how he got those scars,’ he admits, ‘but that was a long time ago. Things are different now. He knows that.’

‘Beliefs like that don’t change overnight. You don’t _recover_ overnight. If Merle had been here, Benjamin would have lost his hands and tongue on the first day.’

‘But he ain’t here.’

'He's not someone you easily forget. And no matter how we may feel about Merle, Daryl misses him.' Carol says as Rick's gaze is drawn back towards the forest. There's movement just on the edge. He lifts the binoculars and then grins.

'Talking about the devil, here he comes now.'

A sharp whistle cuts through the air. Some walkers take notice but by the time they've located the origin of the noise, Daryl has already crossed the road and disappeared between two houses.

'Looks like he didn't get that doe, though,' Rick says as he follows the hunter with his gaze. 'Couple of birds, rabbits. Looks good anyway, those snares of his are a gift from the gods. I never thought I'd become such a fan of rabbit. Ah, there's the better half.'

Below on the street, Daryl rounds a corner and nearly runs into Benjamin. They stop to talk for a couple of moments before taking off together. It doesn't take them long to reach the library. Their voices float up the stairs as they climb the barricade.

'- just look like a person who'd own a dog, that's all.'

'Done told ya; I didn't own no damn dog!'

'You sure got that whistle down. We need another way for you to let me know that you're back. Can't you shout out _honey I'm home_ like a normal person?'

'Not fucking likely. What's wrong with the whistle?'

'It reminds me of those perky outdoors people in the dog park, calling over their Princess and Killer and Shadow. I'm not a dog, Daryl!'

'You're sure acting like a little bitch,' Daryl answers as he walks up the stairs. There's laughter in his voice.

'Oh shut up,' Benjamin replies without heat. 'You love dogs.'

'Sure do.'

'Me too,' Benjamin answers absent-mindedly. ‘ _Just give me a comfortable couch, a dog, a good book, and a woman. Then if you can get the dog to go somewhere and read the book, I might have a little fun._ Groucho Marx.’

Daryl's laughing as he trots up the last few steps, but quickly hides it as he spots Carol and Rick. He gives them a curt nod and glances at Carol. 'What are you doing up here?'

'I was looking for you. Eugene needs a hand moving the water barrels.'

'All right,' Daryl hitches his bow higher.

'I can do it,' Benjamin says. 'You've been on your feet all day.'

'I'm fine,' the hunter says dismissively. 'I'll just pass these off and go find him.' he jostles the string with his game on it and goes down the hatch.

Benjamin frowns at Carol, 'you could pass those chores to someone else. He's been out in the woods all day. He probably hasn't eaten anything either.'

Rick squares his shoulders, 'if it bothered him, we would have known. Trust us. He's not the kind of guy to bite his tongue.'

'Yeah, right. That's why he was the one who passed out from dehydration, huh? Did any of you even notice that he'd been skipping meals? That he hadn't drunk anything for two days?' Benjamin looks angry now. It's the first time any of them has seen him lose his smile.

'Of course we'd noticed,' anger creeps into Rick's words.

'But he's just your errand boy, right? First through the breach every time, huh? Fucking cannon food.'

'Don't pretend you care more about him than we do,' Rick bites out. 'You hardly even know him.'

Benjamin laughs sarcastically, 'yeah, because you can only care about someone when you know every single thing about them. Of course, I'd forgotten.'

'He's my brother,' Rick hisses. 'He's _nothing_ to you! And you sure are nothing to him.'

Carol steps between the two men, 'just calm down. Let's get a start on dinner, okay Ben?'

Benjamin nods at her, but his face is contorted in rage. He glares at Rick, 'just so you know, you might be king of the castle where your family is concerned, but it'll be a cold day in hell when _I_ ever bow to your will!'

'He _is_ my family.'

'But I'm not,' Benjamin spats as he turns on the spot and stalks off.

Carol watches him go and sighs before turning to Rick. 'I'll talk to him.'

 

For the first time in weeks, dinner is a tense affair. Rick snaps and snarks at anyone who tries to get a conversation going. Carl looks relieved when Glenn tells him that it's his turn to take watch and he takes off running, only to have his father snipe that he shouldn't make so much noise.

Benjamin sits next to Daryl, which has quickly become his designated spot. This time, however, he isn't pestering the red-neck with questions or stories. Instead he sits there quietly and picks at his food. In the end, he gives his left-overs to Abraham and goes to clean up the kitchen area.

The group disperses quickly after that, most of them taking refuge in the library’s main hall. Daryl carries some plates over to Eugene, who is in charge of the washing up tonight and then slips out to make his way over to Benjamin’s old room. He’s about to round the corner when Rick steps out of it.

‘What are you doing here?’ Rick asks, anger still curling around the words.

‘Nothing, man,’ Daryl says as he wipes his nose and looks away, hiding behind his bangs. ‘Just wanted to check on little ass-kicker, is all.’

‘She’s sleeping.’

‘Doesn’t mean I can’t check,’ Daryl murmurs as he brushes past his friend.

Rick grabs hold of his arm and pulls him close, ‘you might want to tighten the leash on your guard dog. I don’t need him snapping at me every time you pull a damn muscle.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’ Rick glares at him and then walks off.

Daryl slips into the bedroom and carefully walks over to the crib in the corner. Tara had found it on an attic somewhere while searching for more guns and ammunition. It looks old but serves the little one just as well. The girl is sleeping, curled up around a blanket made out of one of Carl’s old shirts. One of the thumbs is securely locked inside her mouth.

‘What’s your old man on about now, hmm?’ Daryl asks softly as he brushes the blonde hair out of the girl’s face. ‘What’s gotten his panties in a twist this time?’

The girl kicks her feet in her dreams and turns her head towards his voice, but doesn’t wake.

A noise puts Daryl on edge. He turns around, hand on his knife, but it’s only Benjamin who’s leaning against the door frame. He tilts his head to the side.

‘It’s probably my fault. What did he say to you?’

‘That I oughta keep my guard dog on a tighter leash.’

Benjamin's jaw clenches and he looks away. 'Asshole.'

Daryl walks over to him, grabs his shirt and hauls him out of the room. The younger man yelps a little, arms flailing as he tries to keep up with Daryl's longer stride and put his feet back under him. The hunter drags him into an empty storage room, kicks the door closed behind them and then pushes his friend up against the wall. Their faces are so close that they can feel each other's breath on their lips.

'You're talking about one of my boys,' Daryl says. His tone is low and soft, deceptively calm. 'Best watch your damn mouth.'

‘That boy of yours?’ Benjamin asks, mimicking his Southern drawl, ‘he almost got you killed.’

‘What do you care?’

Benjamin’s eyes grow wide and he laughs disbelievingly, ‘are you fucking kidding me right now?’

‘It didn’t happen.’

‘Why did he send you out on your own, huh? Everyone else of your little group had a back-up but he just kicked you out on the street by yourself! Don’t think I didn’t see! They take fucking advantage of you, Daryl. Open our goddamn eyes. Yeah, sure, no _Daryl_ can go outside by himself to find us some water and food. Yeah, _Daryl_ can go and hunt by himself, no problem if he gets ambushed or fucking bit. Oh no, _Daryl_ can move water barrels and hunt and keep watch and do whatever fucking chore we can think off!’

Daryl narrows his eyes, ‘are you done?’

‘Am I…? Ah, fuck you, man.’ Benjamin moves to push past his friend but Daryl pins him to the wall easily.

‘There was a town,’ Daryl breathes, ‘it was a bad place too. The guy who ran it, the Governor, he had two of our own. Rick led a small group of us to the town, slipped inside and found our friends. When we were leaving, shit went down and I got caught. Bound, gagged, all that shit. They dragged me to a fighting pit where I had to fight my own damn brother to the death.’

Benjamin’s face softens. His shoulders slump as he puts a careful hand on Daryl’s hip.

‘They came back for me,’ Daryl says. ‘Rick and Maggie. They came back to haul my ass out of that pit. Me and my brother both. They could have just left us there. I wouldn’t have blamed them, it was a bad situation. But they came back for me. Got me out.’

‘So what you’re doing now is, what? Repaying a debt?’

Daryl gives him a faint smirk, ‘no. You think I’m being Rick’s bitch by going out hunting? Checking the snares? To hell with that, it’s the only chance I got to get away from y’all. If you want someone who sits around on his ass all day, you picked the wrong son of a bitch.’

Benjamin smiles at that, his other hand reaching up to trace a vein running from Daryl’s jaw down his neck. He can feel the heartbeat jump beneath his fingertips. ‘So you do a thousand chores just to get out of the house and away from us all. Are we that horrible to be around?’

‘Sure talk an awful lot.’

‘Gonna shut me up then?’ Benjamin asks as he tilts his head, eying Daryl’s lips.

Daryl seems to realize the implications of their positions and Benjamin’s challenge, and freezes. The dark eyes widen fractionally, fingers flexing where they’re pressed against the wall and Benjamin’s shoulder.

The door opens suddenly.

‘Benjamin, are you in- oh!’ Carol’s jaw drops as she catches sight of the two men, ‘err, I-‘

Daryl jumps back like he’s been stabbed, sets his jaw and scowls, ‘what do you want now?’

Carol eyes him for a second and then turns to Benjamin, ‘I just wanted to let you know that we found those missing bowls you were looking for. The ones you thought Rick had left in Judith’s room?’

‘I remember,’ Benjamin says pointedly, ‘Thank you for letting me know, Carol.’

She bites back a grin, ‘no problem. I’ll just…’

‘I’m gonna go find Glenn, to hell with all y’all,’ Daryl grouses as he brushes past Carol. A fierce blush creeps from his neck to the tips of his ears.

Benjamin sighs and lets his head thud against the wall behind him a couple of times in frustration, ‘so close,’ he says with a laugh. ‘ _So_ close.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Carol laughs. She presses a hand to her mouth, ‘if I’d have known…’

‘Yeah,’ he mock-glares, ‘you just thought I was looking for some fucking bowls inside a storage room we don’t use. _Right_.’

‘I just couldn’t find you and this was the last place I hadn’t checked!’

Benjamin groans and closes his eyes, ‘I could have been kissing Daryl Dixon now if it weren’t for you, woman!’ He rubs at his jaw, ‘though honestly, he looked like he’d rather face a herd of walkers than make out with yours truly. Am I just seeing things? You’re his best friend, right? Is he into me at all?’

Carol’s gaze softens, ‘you’re still alive, aren’t you?’

Benjamin pops one eye open, ‘what?’

‘Not everyone gets to be up close and personal with him, sweetie.’

‘Kind of figured that,’ Benjamin says, ‘does that mean I should be grateful that I even get to _touch_ him? And please note; not in the way I want to. I touch everyone, always. Oh God. Talkative _and_ tactile. I must be his worst nightmare, now I’m thinking about it.’

‘He hasn’t been protesting much,’ Carol points out with a fond smile.

‘No,’ Benjamin seems to think about it for a moment, ‘he hasn’t, has he?’

‘And he hasn’t knifed you for your troubles.’

‘Yet.’

Carol laughs, ‘you know, sometimes all everyone needs is a little push and shove into the right direction. Just… just be careful not to push too hard.’

‘Lady,’ Benjamin says as he pushes himself away from the wall and slings an arm around her shoulders, ‘you give the most confusing advice, but I will follow it nonetheless. Thank you. Now, where were we? Ah, yes, those damn _bowls_ of yours, well, I sure am glad you found those! Let’s see if they’ve finished up cleaning yet.’ He steers her around the corner, back to the group. ‘By the way, know where Rick is sulking? Guess I went a little far with my protective streak, I know y’all care about him too. Sorry.’

‘Thank you. He’s aggressively studying the scale model of the town downstairs.’

The young man snorts, ‘oh my, _aggressively_ studying? I’m so dead. Tell Daryl I loved him, if I don’t return.’

 ‘Will do,’ Carol promises as she watches how he jumps over the balustrade. ‘Good luck, sweetie.’


	11. Thin ice

 

* * *

 

 

The stifling heat is soon replaced by a biting cold wind and darker clouds. The world turns grey around them, wet with rain and miserable despite the longer days. The temperature at night forces them to bundle up again, wearing two pairs of socks and huddling under blankets. They leave a small fire burning in one of the offices to keep Judith comfortable and to warm their food, but don’t risk any in the other rooms.

The first day after the weather had turned had been the hardest. A cold slap in the face, after their skin had gotten used to the loving heat of summer.

Benjamin has dug out his winter clothes, not wanting to wait and see how long the cold spell will last. He’s wearing a darker shade of jeans, a white shirt and grey hoodie which he often leaves hanging open. The black leather jacket made Carl a bit jealous, though the boy had cheered up considerably when Benjamin gave him his leather fingerless gloves. The blond hair hides beneath a dark-red beanie.

Daryl has taken to wearing several layers; two shirts, his jacket and vest, two pairs of socks in his sturdy boots. Benjamin had offered him one of his warmer hoodies, but the hunter passed them on to Carol and Rick instead, claiming that his own clothes were good enough.

With the turning of the weather, the first coughs and sniffles started to wreck the group. Maggie was the first, then Glenn and Carol, Rosita and Noah. The fear that the devastating flu from the prison had returned and caused everyone to go into a frenzy. The sick were quarantined in one of the spare offices in the library.

Gabriel pretended to help by saying his prayers and reading from his holy book, while Benjamin was the one who fed them soup and cleaned up their sick. Maybe it was because he hadn’t been there when the flu had wiped out half of their family, but even the stories didn’t deter him from caring for his visitors.

Eventually Carol got better, then Glenn and Noah, until it became clear that it was just an ordinary flu virus.

Of course, it didn’t spare Benjamin.

The young man came down with it hard, curled up on the couch downstairs, huddled under three blankets and still cold. The girls took good care of him, wiping his forehead with cold cloths and forcing him to drink lots of water. At night Daryl listened to his fever dreams. He cried out for his sister, who shot herself dead over and over again, and for his parents who were torn to pieces in his mind.

In the end Daryl moved to sleep in the exhibition hall upstairs, away from the screams and cries of his friend.

Carol and Rick might have given him disapproving looks but Benjamin never mentioned it afterwards. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed his absence.

The cold still hangs in the air but a fragile sun has appeared on the horizon. Rick ushers most of them outside, claiming they desperately need a bit of fresh air and sunshine in order to fight the lingering symptoms of the disease. The ones who stay behind are in charge of cleaning their rooms thoroughly to get rid of the germs.

They’re heading towards the lake. Carl is carrying two fishing rods over his shoulder. Ever since Daryl brought back stories about finding a lake nearby, the boy has been dying to get out of the town and head over to try and catch some fish.

Benjamin had found the rods in a shed somewhere. He’s not too sure they’ll catch something but the boy is adamant about trying.

The blond is walking at the front of the group, guiding them through the woods with easy grace. He cuts some corners but mostly stays on the tracks. He’s talking to Noah and has casually thrown an arm over the boy’s shoulder. It allows Noah to do the same and use the man as a crutch for his limp without appearing as though he needs help navigating the uneven terrain.

‘I heard he got you a new bike.’

Daryl glances at Rick, who is walking beside him. The former sheriff has his eyes on Benjamin, who is laughing quietly at something Noah said.

'Yeah, so?' He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and looks away to check the surroundings.

'Any good?’

‘’s all right. Engine was shot but I’m workin’ on it.’

‘That’s good then,’ Rick nods, ‘it’s real nice of him to give you the bike. You must have missed Merle’s. You know he got Carl those rods? Brought him a football too so they can throw some ball later.’

Daryl frowns and ducks under a low-hanging branch, letting his hands rustle through the leaves. ‘You just makin’ conversation again or is there something you wanna tell me, Grimes?’

Rick gives him a lopsided smile, ‘fine. I just wanted to say; he’s a good man.’

‘What are you telling me for?’

‘I don’t know, I just…’ Rick shakes his head, ‘you reckon he’ll be coming with us when we leave?’

‘Dunno,’ Daryl shrugs, ‘he was bettin’ on Terminus, so… Don’t know what he’s gonna do now.’

Rick nods again and glances at his friend. ‘There’s a place for him here, you know. With us.’

‘Could use the muscle,’ Daryl agrees as he shrugs the bow higher onto his shoulder.

‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ the former sheriff stops walking and lets Abraham and Glenn pass. The hunter leans against a tree, eyes on the ground and boots scuffing a root as he waits on his friend with a shuttered expression. When the rest of the group is out of earshot, Rick walks up to him. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I don’t know what’s going on between you two, okay, and I don’t care but he’s a good man to have around.’

‘Ain’t up to me.’

‘I think it is.’

Daryl glares at him.

Rick shifts his weight, ‘what? You think I’m blind?’ He smirks at the hunter before brushing past him, ‘never thought you’d be such a coward, Dixon.’

‘ _Coward_?’ his friend echoes, anger starting to curl around the words.

‘Yeah,’ Rick tosses back over his shoulder, ‘you’re taking longer than Glenn to get a leg over.’

‘Shut the hell up!’

‘What’s that?’ Rick asks, cocking his head to the side, ‘I couldn’t hear ya over all that denial and sexual tension.’

‘I’m warnin’ ya!’

Rick turns and laughs again as he sees how angry Daryl is, ‘why the fuck would we care if you want to-‘ He doesn’t get to finish as the hunter tackles him to the ground. They land in a messy pile, Daryl’s fist hitting Rick’s stomach which leaves the sheriff gasping for air. He curses and laughs at the same time, trying to shove his brother off of him, but Daryl overpowers him easily, pinning him down.

‘Best watch your mouth, huh?’ he growls, ‘or ya want me to take another lick?’

‘I don’t want no lick,’ Rick laughs, trying to buck his friend off, but Daryl presses a knee into his stomach and he winces. ‘Save it for Benja-’

Daryl head-butts him.

‘ _Fuck_!’ Pain soars through his forehead. He stills for a second, letting Daryl think that he’s weakened before applying all those lessons of hand-to-hand he’d learned at the academy. He kicks Daryl’s feet out from under him, causing the hunter to land flat on the sheriff, and then he flips their roles easily, pinning the other guy down.

It’s clear that Daryl knows how to fight, it will always be a toss-up between them about who wins, but Rick has been trained for years while Daryl learned how to fight in shady bars and his own living room. He doesn’t have the discipline Rick has, but instead relies on sheer strength, fueled by anger. It makes him sloppy in personal fights, too eager to get a hit in while Rick knows how to restrain, even as he needs to rely on dirty tricks with his friend. He presses down on a muscle, knowing it hurts like hell.

Daryl grunts, grinding his teeth together just as Rick taps his cheek with a flat hand.

‘Hey,’ he says, getting the hunter’s attention, ‘cut it out. Listen,’ he presses down on the muscle when the hunter won’t stop struggling. Daryl groans, pressing his teeth together in a painful grimace. ‘ _Listen_ to me,’ Rick orders. ‘You’re my brother, but I ain’t Merle.’

‘Thank fuck for that!’

‘I don’t give a damn about what Benjamin is to you.’

‘I’m warning ya, Grimes!’

Rick taps his cheek again, ‘shut up. This is just a friendly warning; he will stop, Daryl. Next week or next month or next year, hell, I don’t know, but he will stop if you keep shooting him down every chance you get. He’ll find someone else.’

‘Good luck to them,’ Daryl grouses as he glares up at his brother. He relaxes slightly and the knee stops digging into his muscles. The pain fades.

‘Merle’s dead, man. Your old man too, and whatever fucked up family member you had left.’

‘Fuck you!’

‘They’re _dead_ ,’ Rick stresses. ‘And we don’t give a damn.’

‘It ain’t like that, man!’

Rick gets up and slowly backs away from the hunter, wary of a counter attack. When the other man stays on the ground, face contorted in anger but with a blush creeping up his neck and ears, Rick smirks down at him. ‘Time to stop lyin’ to yourself, Dixon. It’s pathetic.’

He turns and walks away, hand on his gun while he scans the bushes.

Daryl grits his teeth and reaches for a rock. ‘Fuck you,’ he mutters, throwing the rock at the sheriff’s retreating form, but the angle is awkward and it thuds away into the bushes instead. Rick glances over his shoulder at him and shakes his head, before disappearing in the woods and leaving him alone on the ground.

 

 

‘Literature 3,’ Benjamin says without looking up from his book, ‘we discussed the first book of Milton’s Paradise Lost. We had this lady teaching us, she was funny. From the UK. She made us write an essay for every single class and whooped our asses for every stupid citation error. Know what that means?’

‘What?’ Daryl asks because he doesn’t know anything about citation errors.

‘That she whooped our asses a lot.’ Benjamin looks up from his book, flashing him a wicked grin. ‘The first time I got a passing grade for one of those things, I drank myself stupid over the damn victory,’ he laughs, flipping a page. ‘But she was nice though, very proper. Wonder what happened to her.’

‘Probably eating brains somewhere.’

Benjamin shrugs, ‘probably.’

The couches are pushed closer together. Now, whenever they lay down for some sleep, they can look directly at one another. There’s a small gap between the two sleeping spaces, just enough for them to walk through. Right now, Benjamin is on his couch, with his feet on Daryl’s, bridging the gap. Daryl is on his too, staring up at the ceiling and chewing on the nail of his left thumb. Their feet are touching.

‘What was your favorite subject in school?’

Daryl frowns and thinks about it. He never finished high school, dropped out because he couldn’t see the damn point and no-one forced him to go back and hit the books. He wasn’t stupid, just not meant to sit still for that long. He was always getting himself into trouble. He supposes his teachers were relieved when he finally stopped showing up all together.

Besides, with Merle on the way to jail and his dad drunk all the damn time, someone had to earn them a living.

‘Fucking hated school,’ he says.

‘You must have hated one thing a little less than the others.’

‘Does lunch count?’

Benjamin grins but still kicks Daryl’s feet, ‘no. PE is an easy out too, come on, surprise me.’

‘I loved public speaking,’ the hunter says sarcastically.

The green eyes narrow slightly, ‘fine, don’t tell me then.’

Daryl looks at his friend. The blond guy flips another page, his fingers dragging down the paper to keep track of his progress. He looks so relaxed that it’s difficult to comprehend that he was slaying walkers just a couple of hours ago. The long limbs are stretched out, sprawling on the couch.

‘Guess I liked the technical stuff,’ Daryl says after a couple of minutes, ‘we had a class on car repair stuff.’

Benjamin nods.

‘And art.’

That makes the blond guy look up with raised eyebrows, ‘excuse me?’

Daryl grunts, shifting so he’s on his side, ‘I said; and art.’

‘You liked _art_ class?’

‘You got a problem with that?’

Benjamin snorts at his antics, ‘Jesus, sorry, no I don’t have a problem with that. It just surprised me, that’s all. What kind of art class was it?’

‘Drawing ‘n paintin’.’

His friend closes the book, dog-earing the page and stretching, back arching only to sink back into the couch bonelessly. Sleepy eyes refocus on Daryl, ‘did you design your own tattoos?’

‘Yeah. Took the class for a year. Teacher, some old guy, thought I was good. Told me to take the advanced class too.’

‘But you didn’t?’

Daryl bites on his fingernail and shrugs, ‘we had to buy a lot of extra stuff. Special kind of pencils, paper. Had better things to waste my money on.’

Benjamin looks at him, putting his head on the armrest, ‘fair enough. Do you still draw stuff?’

‘What? No,’ Daryl scoffs, ‘you wanted a fucking portrait or somethin’?’

‘What for? I know what my face looks like,’ Benjamin says. ‘I was just curious. Stop thinking that I’m trying to pump you for information or something. I’m just making conversation here, no need to treat is a hostile incursion.’

‘Fine. No. I haven’t drawn anything since designing my tattoo’s. Okay?’

Benjamin yawns and nudges him with his toe, ‘it’s my turn to say: _stop_. I’m on your side, remember?’

Daryl grunts, folding an arm under his head as a pillow.

‘Who knew, bad-ass extraordinaire Daryl Dixon; an art geek. Did you have a favorite pencil? Tell me you did.’

Daryl sniffs, wiping his nose on his arm, ‘what was it you said about your damn books? Would be like picking a body part you didn’t want to lose? I loved all my pencils, man. Were my babies.’

Benjamin laughs and Daryl smiles at the sound, ‘you’re a terrible liar, Daryl.’

‘That’s a compliment, ain’t it?’

‘Look at you being all optimistic all of a sudden,’ the blond grins sleepily. The green eyes are half-closed but still focused on his friend. He shifts to get more comfortable, his feet brushing against Daryl’s. ‘Anyway, gonna tell me why you are fighting with Rick?’

‘No.’

‘Ah.’ Benjamin lowers the hood of his vest so it covers his neck and hair. ‘I guess that _is_ kind of answering my question, isn’t it?’

Daryl doesn’t answer. He looks up at the chandeliers, head resting on the cushions of the couch. The color display is muted now that there is barely any sunshine streaming in through the high windows. Muddy green’s and browns shift over the plaster.

‘I’ve been getting a lot of advice for everyone, you know,’ Benjamin murmurs. His eyes are now closed, words soft and fuzzy around the edges. ‘From Carol, Maggie, Rosita, Tara, even Glenn and Rick _. You have to push him a bit. Don’t push too hard. Let him come to you. Don’t sit back and wait.’_ He sighs, ‘it’s all horribly confusing, but you know, at least they’re giving advice.’

‘What do ya mean?’

‘I still don’t have a bullet in my brain, so I guess they like me enough to have around. And they want you to be happy.’

‘How’d ya figure that? Daryl asks.

‘People are usually happier when they’re with other people. And there’s a whole campaign going on about how to get you to like me. I suppose it gives them something to talk about. Sometimes you just run out of things to discuss during the apocalypse.’

‘Never happened to you.’

‘Stick around long enough and it will,’ Benjamin smiles, though he doesn’t open his eyes. ‘They said there was someone, a while ago. Someone they thought you would like, or liked.’

Daryl feels uncomfortable but is glad that the other guy isn’t watching him. He thinks about how Rick had said, _I know you lost something back there_ , and feels his heart tear up over memories. ‘Not like that,’ he murmurs.

‘Not like what?’

Frustration causes Daryl to shift in his seat, wanting more distance between him and the other guy. His boots land on the floor with a heavy thud. ‘Not in the way you think you like me, okay? It wasn’t like that.’

‘Hmm,’ Benjamin hums as he rubs at the bridge of his noise where the blond hair tickles his skin.

‘We were together for a while,’ Daryl says and then sighs, ‘we were separated from the group. It was just us two. There was this group, they…’ He shakes his head and stares up at the ceiling again.

‘You don’t have to tell me.’ Benjamin murmurs. ‘I’m sorry you lost them.’

‘’s none of your goddamn business anyway.’

He thinks about that sweet southern girl he’d scared. Her shrill voice ringing in his ears, trembling hands clutching his vest as she had tried to push him back, terrified blue eyes in the semi-darkness of the cabin. She’d deserved better too.

Green eyes now watch him, the fuzziness of sleep slowly fading as his friend registers the hostile tone in his voice. Confusion causes his brow to wrinkle. A hand comes up to rub at his cheek, hiding a yawn.

Daryl watches and decides; Rick was right.

‘Didn’t mean to pry,’ Benjamin says apologetically. ‘It’s just, I was talking to Mags and she said-‘

‘And ya accuse us of gossiping? Ain’t that all you been doing since we got here?’ He sits up, shoulders hunched and muscles shifting as he tightens his grip on the couch. Benjamin mimics the move, sitting up and blinking owlishly. The blond hair sticks up as the hoodie slides off his head. He looks rumpled and confused.

‘Sorry, it just came up, I mean…’

‘Make sure it doesn’t, next time,’ Daryl snaps.

Benjamin groans as he rubs the sleep from his eyes, ‘you’re going to give me a whiplash with these mood-swings of yours. We were talking just fine and suddenly you just fly off the handle. The fuck is wrong now? Just tell me to stop talking, it usually works out for you.’

‘Take a hint and shut your damn mouth then.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Benjamin mutters as he closes his eyes. ‘Fine.’

Daryl rummages around in his pockets and finds a mangled package of cigarettes. He lights one even though it always makes Benjamin cross with him. The younger man wrinkles his nose but doesn’t say anything.

They sit together like that for a while. The smoke curls up between them, their knees almost touch.

Daryl takes a drag and scratches at his eyebrow, glaring at his friend. He doesn’t want to fight, but it might make things easier. They won’t need to drag it out if he just gives Benjamin an excuse to walk away and actually find someone better.

‘Ain’t no fag,’ he mutters because he knows how to hurt, with fists and words. He’s had enough experience with both.

Benjamin’s eyes snap open, ‘what?’

‘Got the wrong idea about me,’ Daryl mutters as he avoids the green eyes. ‘Ain’t no damn fag. Just playing nice ‘cause you fed my family, is all.’

‘Right,’ Benjamin mutters, slumping back and wiping a hand over his face, ‘did someone say something to you? Gabriel maybe?’

‘Didn’t have to. I ain’t like that and I’m not pretendin’ no more.’ Daryl doesn’t dare look at the other man, too scared that the hurt and regret is bleeding out through his very pores. He feels sick as he talks but can’t stop now. It’s like ripping off a band aid, he supposes. It has to hurt before it gets better. And it will get better for Benjamin, when he finally leaves.

‘Ah, of course,’ Benjamin says levelly. ‘And this has nothing to do with the fact that you’re fighting with Rick and have been a sulking mess all day. Do you think I’m stupid?’

‘Nah,’ Daryl answers, ‘’cause you got your fancy ass library and education and are quoting shit at me all day every day, so I don’t think you’re stupid, just a stuck up little brat who doesn’t know when to shut the hell up!’

‘You’re unbelievable! Are we fighting about _that_ now? Excuse me, I thought we were dealing with your internalized homophobia.’

‘My _what_? I’m not scared of nothing!’

‘A whole sentence and you picked up on the bit; _phobia_?’ Benjamin asks with disbelief coloring the words. ‘Jesus Daryl. Either find a drink or a shrink, okay? You’re just looking for a fight.’

He is, of course, and it’s proving to be much more difficult to piss Benjamin off than he’d thought. The guy is like a sponge for Daryl’s insults, they hardly make him flinch.

Desperate times, he thinks.                                       

‘A drink or a shrink, huh? Did your sister teach you that line right before she blew her brains out?’

Daryl is used to explosions of anger. Merle on a bad day, his dad after too many drinks, Rick when he feels threatened, they’re all predictable. Flashes of red-hot anger, snarling words and striking fists, as easily dodged as dealt out. But Benjamin doesn’t flinch and jump him; he doesn’t even respond.

The green eyes regard Daryl. Unblinking and calm.

Daryl narrows his own. ‘Or didn’t she have enough time to teach you wise shit like that?’ he mocks. ‘Before you got her killed.’

‘Thin ice, Daryl,’ Benjamin warns.

‘Think you can scare me, punk?’

‘No. ‘Cause you ain’t scared of nothin’, right?’ The blond man mocks in Daryl’s Southern drawl as he gets up and grabs his bag. ‘Didn’t have no problem holding my goddam hand, huh? Spending every waking second with me? Fuck, Daryl,’ He slips back in his own accent, ‘who talked shit about you? About us?’

Daryl leans back and sucks on his teeth, ‘ain’t no such thing.’

‘What?’

‘Ain’t no _us_!’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Benjamin breathes, exasperated. ‘Real mature, Daryl.’

‘Just fucking _go_!’ Daryl shouts, getting up and in Benjamin’s face.  ‘I don’t want you here!’

‘You fucking _liar_.’

They stare at each other, anger curling their fists and quickening their heartbeats. Muscles twitch as nervous feet shift on the floorboards, the only sound in the silent hall. Cold blue eyes meet bright green ones, wary, glancing from under bangs and out of corners of their eyes.

Benjamin is first to uncoil. He drops his bag and steps forward, wrapping strong arms around Daryl’s waist and chest, pressing his face into the warm neck of the hunter, ‘you idiot,’ he grouses, ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it won’t work.’

Daryl can’t help but seek the warmth of his friends body, the reassuring weight of those arms, the strength he feels when he places his hand on the lower back, pushing their bodies closer.

A hand reaches up to his darker hair, running lean fingers through it. Then the hand drops to his waist, a thumb slipping beneath his shirt, rubbing comforting circles into his skin.

It brushes over one of the scars that runs from his hip to his belly button. Almost-forgotten memories hit him hard.

Daryl lashes out before he can even think, pushing the other man away from him. The blond grunts at the impact, stumbling back. The back of his legs hit the couch, causing him to fall onto it.

‘Keep ya damn paws to yourself,’ Daryl snarls, snatching up his backpack. ‘Done told you; I ain’t like that!’

Benjamin glares and rubs at his shoulder where it had knocked against the armrest. ‘ _When a man is penalized for honesty, he learns to lie_. Criss Jami. And you’re a fucking liar, Daryl.’

‘Fuck you!’

‘I see the way you look at me.’ The blond says. ‘Can’t fake that.’

‘Shut your mouth,’ Daryl snaps, making a throw-away gesture. He throws his bag over his shoulder and storms off.

Benjamin leans back into the couch, exhaling slowly. Then, with a grunt of frustration, he grabs a book and throws it across the room.


	12. Fool thing to do

 

* * *

 

 

The grass is wet. It soaks the cuffs of Benjamin’s jeans as he makes his way to the house at the edge of the town. His hoodie protects his hair from the remaining drizzle and his jacket keeps him warm enough for the time being. The army boots were still wet when he’d tried them on this morning so he’s wearing sneakers. His feet are cold. His socks wet. None of that matters.

He slays four walkers on his way over and passes the rotting corpses of victims of his earlier travels to this place. He wonders whether one day all of them will truly be dead, and stay that way, forever. He’s killed so many now, it’s astounding that there are still more, even in this little town. Some come shuffling from the road or the forest. Others have always been here. It never, ever ends.

Skulls crush beneath his hands. Blood gushes through his fingers, making the heft of his knife slippery. The blade slashes through skin and bones and tissue.

It doesn’t bother him anymore. He’s no longer scared of the monsters. He was when he’d first entered this town, tugged along by his younger sister who’d always been fearless, but that was a long time ago. And he’s already lost all the things he never wanted to let go of.

He’s stronger now. Lingering fat burned away by exercise and an apocalyptic diet. And his mind is steeled by hardship and hope.

Before the outbreak, he'd always relied on his mind to save his skin, but now his body is equally developed. There are muscles, now more pronounced, but also scars from where he'd tried but still failed. They hide beneath his clothes. Faint lines of a time he was pushed through a window by a mindless creature. The other time when he took a tumble due to his own stupidity.

There are other scars, too, but they reach further than the top layers of his skin.

The house is quiet when he arrives. He always closes the doors whenever he leaves to prevent any walkers from entering the place which resembles his childhood home, but sometimes animals find their way inside. Birds who nest in the rafters. Wild cats who chase them.

But everything is how he left it the last time. The room is still in shambles. He remembers destroying it. A fit of rage and despair, a hopelessness which he thought would finally destroy him. But it hadn't.

He had dug the grave with his hands still bleeding from his tantrum.

Now, he stands in the living room. It's cold. He leaves wet footprints in the dust and blood.

Something moves outside.

It doesn’t bother him. He knew he was being followed from the moment he’d crossed the main road. A shadow moves past the windows silently.

‘Remember,’ Benjamin says as he gazes at the wall where his sister name is carved into the plaster. ‘The phrase is; _honey, I’m home_.’

A sharp whistles cuts through the air, making the blond man grin and roll his eyes.

Daryl's boots wreak havoc on the floorboards. He's wearing one of Benjamin's hoodies, which hide his dark hair, but the sleeves are rolled up past his elbows, revealing toned arms. The bow is hanging from his shoulder. He clutches a knife in one hand.

'Why are you following me around? Are you practicing your sneaking?'

'Hardly needs practice.'

'Tell that to that doe that's still mocking you. Oh wait, you'd first have to get close enough...'

Daryl huffs out a breath which almost sounds like laughter. ’Cute,’ he scoffs as he walks past Benjamin, looking at the destruction of the room. He picks up one of the kitchen cabinets, turns it over, kicks it aside when he finds it empty. He toes at some rubble. Parts of the couch. Stuffing. Shattered wooden chairs. Glass.

'Tell me why you're following me.'

Daryl looks up for a second, 'doesn't have to be a reason. Just did.'

Benjamin nods. 'Okay. I have to tell you something.'

'Go on then.'

'I'm not going with you. When you leave, I'm not going with you.'

'Okay.' Daryl sniffs, wiping his nose on his wrist before turning back to his explorations. There are books which have been shredded, the pages probably used to start a fire. The sink is blackened. 'Where are you going?'

'Who says I'm going anywhere? I'm going to stay here. I think I'll die here, some day. It doesn't matter how soon that is, though I hate waiting. I’m too restless for that. Impatient. And there won’t be anyone to talk to either. It was quiet, before you all barged in here. I suppose it’ll be like that again.’ Benjamin purses his lips and cocks his head to the side, ‘I survived for seven months. That seems like a reasonable goal. Seven months. It’ll be winter still. I hope it snows when I die.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I hate snow. It’ll make me miss earth less.’

Daryl flashes him a grin, but Benjamin doesn’t see. 'Did ya stay in this room?'

'Upstairs,' Benjamin says with a nod towards the corridor, where a staircase circles up to the next floor. 'It had a bed and the doors locked. We thought it was safer. Well, Charlotte thought so. I was too busy crying to really notice anything.'

Daryl eyes his friend for a minute before walking up the stairs. They creak beneath his weight but hold it easily. Most doors are closed, but he spots the room with the bed immediately. It used to be the master bedroom. On top of the covers lie personal items. A backpack which reminds him of his days at high school. A wallet. Keys. And a small leather-bound notebook.

He picks the wallet up and flips it open. There's some money there, credit cards, a student card which sports the picture of a beaming Benjamin. He looks younger there and his hair is a dark shade of red, but Daryl still recognizes that smile.

There's a picture of an older couple. His parents, probably. And one of himself and a young girl in an army uniform. She's riding his back, arms around his neck, identical expressions of joy on their faces. Charlotte.

Daryl stuffs the wallet in his back pocket. The notebook is filled with teeny-tiny handwriting. Lines drawn by pencil, ink, charcoal. He leaves through it, eyes scanning the many pages. It's a diary. It starts on a Sunday. The last pages don’t have a date. They’re filled with angry scrawls, jagged lines and blurred words, destroyed by salty tears.

He closes the notebook and pretends that the last words aren’t _forgive me_.

There’s nothing else of value, but he still takes the items. The keys jingle in his pocket. He’s not sure why he takes them, but he knows he can’t leave them. Not here.

Benjamin doesn’t look up when he joins him again downstairs. He’s still looking at the name on the wall.

As Daryl walks around the apartment, he scrutinizes his friend. The hair puzzles him now. In the picture he’d obviously dyed it, the shade of red had been unnatural but still stunning. The blond hair might be his natural hair color, though Daryl can’t be sure. When he circles closer, pretending to inspect a broken cabinet, he glances at the blond hair. It annoys him that he can’t tell.

‘You know I can tell that you’re looking at me, right? You can stop pretending to be interested in the remains of this ladies old home. There’s nothing to find.’ Benjamin looks at him now. ‘You’re not… You don’t mind that I won’t come with you?’

‘Would you come if I did?’

‘No.’

‘Makes no difference then.’

Benjamin closes his eyes in a painful grimace.

Daryl sits down in the windowsill, ‘what?’

‘Three steps forward, two steps back, fuck me. It’s exhausting, really, how hard you pretend not to care. I mean, I’m fine with pretending your little freak-out, you know, _I ain’t no fag,_ didn’t happen, but _damn_ … I’m not your personal punching bag, okay? I’m your friend. At least, I fucking thought I was.’

Daryl chews on the nail of his thumb and shrugs. ‘I fixed the motorcycle. It’s good to go.’

Benjamin blinks and then gives him a disbelieving look, ‘well, thank fuck for that! I have been wondering, you know, in between my depression-fueled sense of abandonment and crippling unrequited love!’

‘What the hell do you want me to say?’ Daryl snarls as he gets up and stalks over to his friend. ‘Please stay with me? Don’t leave me?’

‘It’d be a fucking start!’ Benjamin shouts, shoving Daryl’s shoulder. ‘Do you even realize how hard it is to keep my distance? I’ve been _so_ patient. But every time I get one inch closer, you shut me down and shove me back. I’m tired of playing games!’

‘Maybe I don’t want ya to keep ya distance!’ Daryl shouts back, making a move like he wants to shove Benjamin back, but he changes his mind mid-air. He’s breathing harder, jaws clenched. There’s anger in his face, but his eyes tell a different story. He looks lost. ‘I don’t know,’ he starts and then falters.

‘What do you want from me then?’ Benjamin asks, his tone softer now. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Daryl breathes through his nose. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. He doesn’t quite meet Benjamin’s eye.

‘To push and shove? You can’t even _look_ at me.’

Stubbornness forces Daryl’s gaze up.

‘Well, congratulations on that feat,’ Benjamin mutters as he rolls his eyes, ‘must have taken all your willpower.’

‘Talk about shootin’ people down.’

Benjamin laughs breathily and nods, ‘yeah, ‘cause this is all on me. Tell me what you want.’

Daryl glances away.

‘Look at me,’ Benjamin orders, his voice cracking like a whip as he steps forward into Daryl’s personal space. ‘You can’t even say it, can you? God. This is why I won’t come with you, because I look at you and I see you tearing yourself up every single day. Do you even know how hard it is to watch that happen? I don’t understand how Carol and Rick cope. How anyone of your group copes. Do you think we’re fucking blind?’ He reaches out and grabs Daryl’s right hand, yanking it up. There are wounds on the back of it, dark spots, markings of spend cigarettes. They haven’t scarred over yet. Benjamin looks at them and then shoves the hand away from him, ‘I understand that it’s confusing if I’m the first guy you ever felt this way about, but fuck, Daryl. Why are you so _determined_ to be unhappy?’

‘I’m not-‘

‘It’s right _here_ ,’ Benjamin says loudly, losing his patience, ‘you’ve just got to take the fucking chance! Reach out and fucking take what’s being offered here! Have a little bit of faith!’

‘In what?’ Daryl asks angrily, ‘you? You’re the one running off!’

‘Because you shove me aside every chance you get. I’ve got no interest in being your dirty little secret. And I’m not sticking around to watch you destroy yourself over this!’

‘You’re not..,’ Daryl starts and stops, rubbing a nervous hand over his jaw, nails scratching over the shadow of a beard. He looks away again. ‘It’s… I don’t know _how_.’

‘Excuse me?’

Daryl glares at him. A blush creeps from his neck to his cheeks and then up to the tips of his ears. ‘I’ve never…. I’ve never done this before, okay? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when… There’ve been some girls, but they were just… Gropes at the bar, drunken kisses in the alley. I never took them home because of…’ He clenches his jaw, ‘just because. And they never took _me_ home, so... I don't know what I’m supposed to do. What you want me to do. Bring you back flowers after huntin’? Hold your fucking hand while walking a lap ‘round the library, checkin’ for walkers? What?’

Benjamin smiles faintly, ‘I think the rules of dating went out the window, you know, along with the rest of civilization.’ There’s relief flooding his features, his shoulders sag as anger leaves his posture. He steps closer to the hunter, a hand carefully placed on a hip, fingers resting on the leather belt. A grin creeps onto his face.

‘Ain’t never dated no-one.’ Daryl scowls and the blush deepens but he seems to steal himself, ‘ain’t that kind of guy. Not going to hold your hand or nothing, never did with anyone.’ He scowls at Benjamin’s smile, ‘and sure as hell never kissed a _guy_.’

‘But you want to?’

The question causes ice to form in Daryl’s chest, his breath hitches slightly. Now he knows what deer must feel when they see the crossbow trained on them. There’s no going back after this, he knows. But he ain’t no coward, no matter what Rick thinks.

The chin is tilted upwards, not quite a nod and almost a challenge.

Benjamin lifts a hand, his fingers trailing over Daryl’s sideburns, down his cheek, over his jaw to trace his bottom lip. He watches how the pupils of his friend blow up. Slowly, he leans forward, allowing Daryl to move back or stop him.

He doesn’t.

It’s a dry kiss, just their lips pressing together. Daryl seems frozen, eyes wide and arms limp at his side. Benjamin leans back slightly, ‘you good?’

Another tilt of the head, followed by a typical _hmh_.

 ‘Okay then,’ Benjamin grins before capturing Daryl’s lips again. A peck turns into a nip, enticing the hunter to part his lips slightly. A tongue darts out, touches a lower lip, not quite daring, shy and tentative. There isn’t an answering touch.

 Daryl can feel a hand move from his face to his hair. Another hand curls around his hip. He’s not sure what to do with his hands, or any part of his body, really. Distant memories haunt him. He expects to hear Merle’s cruel laughter any second now, or his dad’s booming voice.

The kiss ends again. Benjamin is frowning a little. Their noses bump together, their breath is on each-others lips. He can feel the body heat from the blond man, can taste him on his own lips. His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip, which only increases the taste.

 ‘You’re fucking gorgeous,’ Benjamin says now, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

He must have flinched because the frown is back immediately.

‘You _are_ ,’ the blond stresses. ‘My God, how can you not believe that? Fucking hell, Daryl. I mean,’ he laughs now, ‘honestly? You could do with a haircut, but hey! It’s the apocalypse, so you get a free pass on that.’

Daryl snorts and glances up at Benjamin’s hair, which he must have cut himself over the past seven months. There’s not a hair out of place. But now that he’s standing so close, nose to nose, Daryl can see that the roots are starting to turn gray. Silver strands pop up, only the tips still blond.

‘Have you dyed your hair?’ he asks, because it annoys him that he doesn’t know.

‘What? Oh, yeah. I turned gray when I was sixteen years old. Thought it was the end of the world until my mother told me that I could just dye it, if it really bothered me. They even let me color it unnatural colors. Green, blue, purple, I‘ve must have had every color of the rainbow. Blond was my natural color though.’

‘Who turns gray at sixteen?’

Benjamin laughs, ‘I did! And so did my dad when he was sixteen, so it must be in the genes or something.’

‘When’s the last time you dyed it?’

 ‘Not that long ago. I raided the shops and found some dye. It was a couple months after my sister had died, but I was still a mess. A skinny, wrangly mess. One day I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized myself. That’s when I started to find some decent clothes, dye my hair, run some laps around the town to get back in shape. She wouldn’t have wanted me to waste away. Not after all the trouble she’d gone through to save my sorry ass.’

Daryl reaches up and touches the blond strands. ‘What color did you like best?’

Benjamin thinks for a moment, ‘dark blue, like, denim? It looked good.’ He grins, ‘turned heads when I walked down the street.’

‘I’d fucking stare if I saw someone with blue hair.’

Benjamin laughs and loops an arm around Daryl’s neck, bringing their bodies closer. ‘Is that so? What color would you like best then?’ He pecks Daryl on the lips. Once, twice, the third time Daryl closes his eyes and moves his lips too.

‘I’m not sure,’ he says when Benjamin leans back for a second, but then he’s kissing him again. ‘Maybe,’ kiss, ‘hmm, a dark green?’ Kiss. ‘I dunno.’ He seems to try and think of another color, but gets distracted by the lips on his own. He opens his mouth, reaches up to let his fingers sink into the blond hair, feels a hand roam over his side and hip. It’s hot and wet and good. Their teeth clash, noses bump as they try to find the perfect fit. They break for air before they do. Daryl’s pupils are blown wide as he stares at Benjamin’s glistening lips. ‘I liked the red.’

Benjamin grins wickedly before capturing his mouth again.

This time, Daryl’s more prepared. He opens his mouth readily and grabs hold of Benjamin’s hip with his one free hand. Their bodies press together. He can feel the other man’s heartbeat against his own chest, beating just out of sync, making everything _louder_ and _better_. Blood seems to rush through his ears, white noise, only broken when Benjamin moans softly.

The blond man places a warm hand on his neck, a thumb rubs over his jaw.

They find an easy rhythm, their tongues curling around each-others, tracing teeth which nips at lips. The hand moves from the jaw down to the bottom of his shirt. Skin-warmed fingers dip below the fabric, tracing the muscles up to ribs.

Daryl tenses but doesn’t push him away because it’s _weird_ but also _good_. He hasn’t felt this alive in months and months and months.

Abruptly, Benjamin stops. He’s breathing hard, staring at the hunter with wide eyes which narrow suspiciously, ‘ _you liked the red_? How the fuck would you know?’

Daryl gives him an abashed look. ‘Didn’t nobody tell you not to leave your shit lyin’ ‘round? ‘s a fool thing to do.’

‘What-,’ Benjamin’s mouth snaps shut and then he punches Daryl’s shoulder lightly, ‘my wallet! There’s a picture in my wallet of me with red hair! Did you steal it?’

‘Ain’t stealing if you-‘

‘You took it! Where is it?’ Benjamin asks and his hands fly down to touch Daryl’s pockets, first the front two before they slide back to…

‘Get your hands off of me,’ Daryl warns, but he cups Benjamin’s face and kisses him just before Benjamin’s fingers reach his back pocket, where the wallet is stashed away.

Benjamin laughs into the kiss, hands coming up to the hunter’s ribs. ‘I can’t believe you stole my picture,’ he says when they break apart again. ‘That is so high school of you.’

‘Done told ya-‘

‘What do you need a picture for anyway? Unbelievable. The real deal within your grasp and you opted to take a three year old picture with you instead. That’s pathetic!’ Benjamin kisses his cheek and neck before hugging him tightly, his whole frame shaking with laughter.

Daryl wraps an arm around his waist, ‘shut up.’

‘Make me,’ Benjamin challenges with a grin.

And this time, Daryl does. Quite happily.


	13. Visitors

 

* * *

 

 

‘Hey.’

Daryl glances over his shoulder to see Rick standing on the roof. He looks unsure, hands on his hips, near his gun, but eyes down and head cocked slightly to the side in order to avoid the keen archer’s eyes.

They haven’t spoken since their fight.

‘Hey,’ the hunter answers, only slightly surprised that Rick’s involuntary flinch at the word doesn’t snap his spine in two; the tension in his frame must be unbearable. ‘’s up?’

Rick steps closer, ‘I just wanted to see how you were doing.’

‘Fine. Couple of walkers by the front door, I took them out. Glenn is doing his rounds, he’ll grab my bolts on his way back, so we’re good.’

The former sheriff nods and sits down on the edge of the roof, eyes on his friend at all times. ‘What about us, are we good?’

Daryl snorts, ‘you never had no siblings, huh?’ He smirks at Rick’s confused frown. ‘Fuckin’ learn to take a punch, officer. Can’t be my brother without droppin’ the gloves every once a while, man. Get used to it.’

Rick laughs, posture relaxing. ‘No,’ he says as he looks out over the town. ‘Never had no siblings before.’

‘Got yaself in a world of trouble then,’ the hunter smirks. ‘Ain’t no damn picnic.’

‘Worth it, though.’

‘Yeah.’

They look at each other for a moment. Daryl aims a kick at Rick’s leg, hitting his knee, and the cop swats at him. Their grins echo each other, wide and filled with boyish banter.

A noise near the barricade attracts their attention. Glenn runs up the staircase, a wide smile on his face. He has a couple of bolts in his left hand and a jug of something in his right. ‘Hey guys,’ he laughs, shaking his head a little as he walks over to his two oldest friends. ‘Got your bolts, Daryl, and something else,’ he holds up the jug, ‘ran into Benjamin and Michonne. He told me to give you this.’

Daryl reaches for the bolts first, ‘what is it?’

Rick leans around, catching the label, ‘some kind of iced tea.’

‘ _Really_?’

Glenn and Rick both lift an eyebrow at the enthusiasm coming from the stoic hunter. Daryl clears his throat, ‘’s my favorite. Drink. You know, from before, ah, fuck you. Everyone likes iced tea.’

Glenn looks at him fondly before settling on the floor, cracking the jug open. ‘Ran into Carl too,’ he tells Rick, ‘snuck out of the back just when I walked past.’

Rick nods, ‘he’s going fishing with Ben and Michonne. Everyone’s going a little crazy, being cooped inside this damn library, so I figured he’d stretch his legs and make himself useful.’

‘Good,’ Glenn says. ‘I’m glad he took Benjamin. No offense, Daryl, but your boy can _talk_.’

Daryl can feel Rick tense beside him, but he just nods and looks out over the town, ‘tell me about it,’ he murmurs.

There’s no point pretending, he supposes. Not when around Rick and Glenn, who are his brothers by sweat and tears, if not blood. And now, they just shoot him a grin while settling down, legs spread out and eyes closed as they enjoy the spring weather.

They spend the rest of the morning and afternoon on the roof. Eugene and Gabriel are shooed away when they come up to take watch. Instead, Rick lies on the ridge, gazing out over the town as Glenn lazily searches the horizon with the binoculars.

Familiar jibes and jokes mix with the sweet taste of iced tea. First meetings recalled by horrid quotes (‘what did you call it? Disease ridden, motherless…?’ ‘Fuck you, was mad, is all!’) (‘China-man called ya a dumbass?’ ‘He was in a _tank_ , who the fuck hides in a tank?) and fond memories by soft sniggers (‘Ya went fucking Logistics on my ass, thought you were army or somethin’!’ ‘Did I look like fucking _army_?’ ‘What the fuck do pizza boys look like? They ain’t never Asian, man!’ ‘Obviously, some are!’) (‘Serves you right, you always come up with the weird nicknames. Get how annoying that is now, _gorgeous_?’ ‘Fuck you, I never use nicknames.’ ‘Called Lori Olive Oil once.’ ‘She ratted?’ ‘What about show-around?’ ‘Last samurai, Lil’ asskicker-‘ ‘I didn’t mean nothin’-‘ ‘Sure about that, Darlina?’).

 

It’s getting dark when Daryl is handling the binoculars. He spots Carl, Michonne and Benjamin as they break the tree line. The young boy has a rod over his shoulder, the sheriff hat on his head and a line with several fish in his left hand. When he looks up at the woman walking next to him, Daryl catches his wide smile.

‘Your kid’s back,’ Daryl murmurs, aiming a kick at Rick. ‘Looks like a good catch.’

‘That’s my boy,’ Rick grins as he gets up and joins Daryl at the edge of the roof. ‘Let me have a-‘

The hand, which had been reaching for the binoculars, stills in mid-air. They all freeze.

The quiet of a beautiful spring afternoon is suddenly broken by the sound of engines.

‘Fuck,’ Rick breathes, eyes wide as the sound comes closer and closer. It’s approaching fast.

With his heart beating in his throat, Daryl looks down at Michonne, Benjamin and Carl, who seem frozen on the spot. They’re a couple of blocks into town, on the main road. Carl breaks the spell first, but panics and drops his rod and fish, gesturing wildly to one of the stores.

‘On the left!’ Glenn whispers.

Daryl glances at the main road. A pick-up truck comes thundering around the corner, the mechanical sound foreign in their ears. He counts heads. ‘’s five of them.’

‘We gotta get down there,’ Rick whispers as he grabs his Colt Python.

‘Rick,’ Glenn grabs his friend by the shoulder, ‘we need to wait, there could be more incoming.’

‘Carl’s down there!’ Rick snaps back.

Daryl ignores the fighting. He watches how Michonne jerks into action, her whole posture changing as she crouches low and grabs Carl’s stuff. She moves towards one of the stores but then Benjamin grabs her arm, dragging her towards an alley instead.

‘Good man,’ Daryl breathes, ‘they’ll be searching the stores.’

The car comes closer and closer. It reaches the first houses just as Rick grabs Daryl’s shoulder, ‘what’s going on, where are they?’

‘Ben’s got them, they’re… He’s moving towards that alley next to the liquor store. Its closest, gets them off the road.’ Daryl feels sweat dripping down his neck. His hold on the binoculars is so tight, it hurts. He swivels back to the pick-up.

Five guys. Armed.

There’s three of them.

He doesn’t like the odds.

The hatch behind them opens. Sasha and Tara pull themselves up first, then Maggie and Abraham. Their faces are pale and eyes wide. The sound of the engine must have spooked them too.

Sasha passes Rick the riffle with the scope. He rips it from her hands and hunkers down next the Daryl on the edge of the roof. ‘They’re getting out. They’re… they’re going to raid the stores.’

‘’s what we did,’ Daryl murmurs, ‘got good guns, too.’

‘They’re one street away. I can’t get a good angle, fuck,’ Rick says through clenched teeth. He swivels his gun around, ‘what… that’s a _dead end_!’

Daryl frowns and looks back at Michonne and Carl, who are looking up a high barbed wired fence in desperation. ‘No, it ain’t.’ He watches how Benjamin braces himself against a brick wall, gesturing towards Carl. ‘The fire escape.’

With his hands folded, Benjamin catches Carl’s foot when he does a run-up, and then boosts him up. He reaches the bottom of the fire escape and climbs up the first platform.

Michonne follows.

‘Hurry up, _hurry up_ ,’ Rick whispers.

The woman climbs up easily, gesturing towards the boy that he needs to be quiet. Then she turns around, leaning down to grab the rod and fishing equipment from the blond man.

‘Like fucking rats in a trap,’ Rick says, getting to his knees, ‘there’s no way out, we blocked that door to the liquor shop, it’s crawling with walkers in there! A shoot-out from one floor up, on a fire escape, that what your man had in mind?’ He now asks Daryl, shoving his shoulder, ‘he’s going to get them killed!’

The former sheriff throws the gun onto his back and gets up, running towards the barricade, ‘Maggie, Glenn, Abe, Tara, with me!’

Daryl shakes his head, knows that they’ll be too late. He turns back to the street, watching how the strangers get out of the truck and move towards the stores. They pass the bookshop on the corner.

‘What’s his plan?’ Sasha asks as she sinks to her knees. ‘He knows this town best, he must have had a plan!’

‘They can get onto the roof. If they climb up, they can get out of sight, but there ain’t enough time. They’re already-‘

‘What’s he doing?’ Sasha cuts in, frowning.

Daryl looks.

Michonne is hanging down the escape, her hand reaching out to Benjamin so she can pull him up the landing. But the blond isn’t doing a run-up. Instead, he’s slowly walking backwards. Daryl can only see the back of his head, but Michonne seems to be speaking, pleading, she slams her hand on the landing, gesturing wildly, and even Carl seems mad and distressed.

Then Benjamin lifts a hand as if he’s saluting, and then he takes out his gun.

He walks back out onto the main street.

Nobody ever looks up, Daryl thinks as he looks at Michonne, who pushes Carl down onto the landing, pressing themselves against the building and the floor.

‘What the fuck is he - they’ll see him!’

Daryl feels sick when he watches how Benjamin stops in the middle of the road and checks his gun.

‘He knows that,’ he says. ‘He’s going to-‘

Benjamin lifts the gun, taking aim.

One of the strangers rounds the corner. And dies by Benjamin’s bullet.

‘He’s outnumbered!’ Sasha cries. ‘Rick is nowhere near-‘

‘Shut up!’ Daryl hisses, ‘He ain’t fighting them! Look!’

The gunshot causes a frenzy among the strangers, but Daryl can immediately see that they’re not used to these types of situations. Their instincts are all wrong. Instead of taking cover, they run towards their fallen friend. Cries of anguish follow the echo of the bullet.

Benjamin takes aim again.

He misses this time, the bullet scraping the wall next to one of the men.

Benjamin takes a couple of steps backwards, gun still raised, and fires off another shot.

‘Run,’ Daryl whispers.

And Benjamin turns on his heels, not waiting to see whether his last bullet met its target, and _runs_.

 

The men only need a second before they start their pursuit.

 

Through the alley, over a low fence, across a garden, cutting through a house, over a fence, up on a shed, into a narrow lane, feet pounding, hands on bricks, pushing himself around a corner, hurdling through another house, vaulting a car, stumbling when he nearly trips over a bike parked in another alley, crossing the street, dodging a walker and skidding around a van…

The only sound he hears is the thunder of his own heartbeat.

And the lightning strikes of the bullets in his wake.

 

At the edge of the forest, Benjamin turns for a couple of seconds. Four guys come running. He takes another shot, but it’s sloppy and misses the guy’s head completely.

His second try finds its target.

He’s running out of bullets.

 

Three men left. Hot on his heels.

He disappears into the forest.


	14. City boy

 

* * *

 

 

Smoke curls around his hand while he stands on the roof, looking out over the forest. It’s dark. A cigarette rests between two fingers, forgotten, as his eyes track every movement at the tree line. He can barely make the border out, the moon just a sliver above him but it helps to ease the feeling inside his chest.

The hatch behind him opens. Michonne crawls onto the roof, stretching as she closes it behind her. She’s a quiet shadow, staying silent for a long time before stepping up beside him, shoulders hunched and eyes wary.

‘I’m sorry,’ she offers.

He grunts. It’s been hours since the last gunshot had rung out. He knows Benjamin has run out of ammunition by now. ‘Jack-asses haven’t come back yet. He still got his knife. He’ll get them.’

Michonne looks at him, eyes sad. ‘He saved us.’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

They can’t go after him, Daryl knows. It’s too dark, they might end up offing each other in the darkness.

‘I’m so sorry, Daryl.’

‘Stop sayin’ that.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cause he ain’t dead,’ Daryl snaps. ‘Jesus. Y’all act like he ain’t never comin’ back! He’s been lookin’ after himself for longer than y’all think. He got this, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Michonne echoes softly.

They look at each other for a moment. And stay silent as they keep watch.

 

Rosita wakes him up the next day. The smile on her face takes a second to register, but she shakes his shoulder and grins, ‘he’s back!’

 

Benjamin is climbing over the barricade just when Daryl hoists himself onto the roof. The blond man staggers, too pale and covered in mud and blood, and grabs hold of Rick’s shoulders. He spits on the floor, dark blood staining the concrete, and turns to the former sheriff. There are dark circle around his eyes. ‘Carl?  He asks, an edge of hysteria around his words as he shakes the father, ‘Michonne, where - are they - oh my God –‘

‘Breathe,’ Rick says as he grabs Benjamin’s face with both hands, forcing the green gaze upon himself, ‘ _breathe_. They’re fine, They’re inside, you got them out.’

‘I couldn’t – I – I just –‘

‘Carl and Michonne are _safe_ ,’ Rick stresses. ‘Are you hurt? Ben, look at me. Are you hurt?’

‘What?’ Benjamin breathes heavily, eyes darting around, ‘no, no, I don’t…  don’t think so, I… No. It’s just,’ he wipes at his eyes, smearing blood over his forehead and temple, ‘no.’

Rick grins and pulls Benjamin in a rough hug, ‘thank you.’

The blond relaxes into the touch, burying his face in Rick’s warm neck and looping his arms around the wiry frame. ‘They’re okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Rick assures him, ‘they’re okay, thanks to your self-sacrificing stunt,’ he slaps Benjamin across the back of his head, ‘don’t _ever_ do that again, you hear me?’

The blond man laughs into his neck and then leans back, breaking away from the hug even though Rick is still holding on to his shoulders. ‘Yeah, yeah, fine. Never again. Jesus.’

‘What happened?’

Benjamin swallows a couple of times, ‘just… they followed me into the forest. It was fucking dark, couldn’t see shit. I was just hoping that you guys wouldn’t come after me or I’d probably killed your asses by accident.’

‘We couldn’t risk that,’ Rick says.

‘No,’ Benjamin agrees, a tired smile on his face. ‘Let’s get inside, I… ehh... I want to see them for myself, okay?’

Rick snorts and ruffles his hair, dragging him forward by his neck, ‘of course, come on then.’ The former sheriff pushes the younger man towards the hatch, where Daryl is standing with his arms crossed.

There’s dirt on the younger man’s face. Streaks of mud and blood. He seems paler than usual, with his lips chapped and dark rings around his eyes like bruises. Lack of sleep, Daryl thinks, thirst, hunger. But the green eyes are bright when they meet Daryl’s.

‘Hello,’ the blond greets.

‘Welcome back.’

‘Thank you.’

They hold each-others gaze.

Benjamin’s face breaks into a grin.

Daryl feels a blush creeping up towards the tips of his ears.

‘Take a picture, it’ll last longer,’ Benjamin says after a couple of seconds, ‘oh wait…’

‘Stop.’

The younger man grins at him, eyes sparkling. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but decides not to. He glances at Rick, Eugene and Abraham before ducking his head slightly, ‘come on, let’s get inside.’

When he walks past the hunter, he briefly puts a hand on his biceps.

 

Daryl eventually catches the blond haired man alone in one of the back offices on the first floor. A bowl with steaming water stands on a desk. Benjamin is leaning against the desk, his hands planted on the surface but his head hanging low. Blond strands fall into his eyes, shielding his expression.

His jacket is thrown into a corner, along with his hoodie and shirt.

The dog tags rest on his naked chest.

Daryl watches how the man lifts one hand, folds it over his eyes and sighs deeply. Then he pinches the bridge of his nose before resuming his leaning position against the desk. Muscles move beneath pale skin. There’s a faint scar on his left side from where he’d fallen through glass, but Daryl suspects that it will fade in time.

The shoulder blades move. The spine arches.

He isn’t bulky in the way Daryl is, or hell, _Abraham_. Instead, he’s lean, the ribs faintly visible beneath the skin. But wiry muscles shift when he moves; hidden strength.

Now he dips a piece of cloth in the bowl, flinching for a moment at the heat of the water. He  wrings it out and then drags the cloth over his left shoulder, down his arm and then his chest. He brushes grime away, the traces of blood walkers have left on his skin. The water reveals dark patches on his skin, the beginnings of bruises left by fists and boots. He prods at them carefully, grimacing. Then he cleans his neck, his face, dipping the cloth in water to rinse it out before awkwardly reaching for his back.

‘Hey,’ Daryl says softly, not wanting to startle the man while also not wanting to be caught staring.

Benjamin looks up, through his hair and smiles, ‘hey yourself. How are you holding up? Missed me much?’ He stands up, throwing the cloth back into the bowl. His chest is glistening from the sheen the water left behind.

‘You were gone a long while.’

It’s as much of an admission he will allow.

‘Yeah, ran out of bullets, then breath,’ he grins a little and then sobers. ‘Took me a while to get the angle on the first one. Second went easy. The third hard. I’d taken the second guy’s weapon, some sort of military automatic gun. It fucking jammed. Can you believe it? Moment of truth and just, _nothing_. Had to run like hell to get away, figure out a new way to get the jump on him.’ He shrugs, ‘took a while, sorry.’

‘Hmm,’ Daryl moves to stand next to the table. ‘You okay?’

‘Fine, yeah,’ Benjamin shifts his weight, almost looking uncomfortable. ‘I mean,’ he starts and then stops, looks at Daryl uncertainly, ‘we’re…. we’re good, right? You’re not… I don’t know.’

‘Yeah. We’re good.’

Benjamin smiles again, ‘good,’ he echoes, ‘because I… Back on the roof? I just thought you wouldn’t want, you know, with Rick and Glenn there….’

He wants to say that he doesn’t give a damn about what other people think of him, but he knows that it’s not true. He thinks about all the times Glenn had flown up the stairs, anxious to get back into Maggie’s arms. Their hugs, fierce kisses, the whispered words shared between them.

And their reunion. Him and Benjamin. A stiff _hello_ , _welcome back_ , a visual check and curt nod, an inside joke to break the tension.

He can’t deny being relieved that Benjamin hadn’t made a move on him out there. Some things he wants to keep to himself and he’s not even sure what they are. All he knows is that the dread inside his stomach is slowly draining away now that the other guy is back home.

Benjamin nods and picks the cloth back up, wringing it out, ‘right, I just wanted to make that clear, that it’s not that I don’t want – because I do, badly -  it’s just that I know you might not… Whatever, it’s fine. We’re good.’ He reaches up to try and wipe his shoulder blade clean. ‘Fuck,’ he drops his hand again, ‘I could fucking _kill_ for a shower. This feels so much like camping, it makes me sick.’

Daryl snorts, ‘city boy.’

‘Yeah, damn proud of it. Not everyone looks fucking gorgeous after spending all day and night in a damn forest, okay? And there’s walker gut all over my clothes, blood under my nails, on my back, _in my hair_!’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Daryl smirks, taking the cloth from him, ‘stop being so damn precious. Stay still.’

‘The phrase is: bend over,’ Benjamin leers at him, but he crosses his arms in front of his chest and stays motionless.

‘Stop,’ Daryl warns without much heat. His hand feels unsteady as he steps forward to put the cloth to Benjamin’s skin. To compensate, he grips his friends shoulder, his fingers leaving white marks, and drags the cloth over the spine, from neck to lower back in one fluent swoop.

Benjamin lets his chin drop to his chest, exposing his neck further. Muscles move beneath Daryl’s fingertips. The spine ripples. There’s a mole just beneath his right shoulder blade.

‘Rick’s going to call a meeting,’ Daryl murmurs to break the silence.

‘I think we both know what he’s going to say. If any of you thought they’d find Eden in this town they were dead wrong.’

‘Don’t think anyone is bettin’ on findin’ that anymore.’

Benjamin throws him a look over his shoulder, ‘I am. All this? This is temporary. Dante went through fire and nine circles of hell to reach his paradise. We shall do the same. Our paradise is going to be a survivors settlement, a quarantine zone, a military camp, an old country home somewhere far from everything and everything else. We’re going to grow old in a place with hot water, electricity and fresh vegetables. We’ll tell the children about how we once had a thing called the internet. You’ll see.’

A fond smile graces Daryl’s face for a second, then he lets his forehead rest against Benjamin’s shoulder, his hands sliding down to narrow hips, rounding to rest on the metallic belt buckle. ‘You’re hopeless,’ he whispers into the skin.

Benjamin turns, careful to keep Daryl close. The hunter’s forehead now rests against his collarbone. A hand comes to rest in the dark-brown hair, lips kiss a temple. ‘I’m anything but,’ he answers quietly.

Daryl lifts his head to look at the other man.

This time, neither of them is quite sure who leans in first. Their lips meet half-way, hungry, teeth click together before Benjamin tilts his head and they find a better rhythm. Daryl pulls narrow hips to his, one hand coming up to rest on Benjamin’s neck, feeling the heart pound beneath his fingertips.

Benjamin wins the battle for control by stealthily slipping a hand under Daryl’s shirt, caressing his abs, and using the resulting gasp from the hunter to let his tongue curl around his.

Daryl compensates by pushing Benjamin back against the table. The blond man slides onto it, opens his legs to pull Daryl close again. Their chests press together, heartbeats thundering out of sync, not a beat of silence between them.

‘Oh God, _yes_ ,’ Benjamin breathes against Daryl’s lips before conquering the other man once more. He tucks at hair, brushing it out of eyes, running his fingers through it to cradle a skull.

Daryl puts his hands on narrow hips, feeling the bones beneath his hands, the warmth of the skin, heat from somewhere low in their bellies, deep in their chests. He breathes in as Benjamin breathes out, demands and begs in turn, teeth grazing lips as an intruding tongue makes him light-headed.

This isn’t like any of the drunk kisses in a dark alley behind that run down bar. Benjamin doesn’t smell like wine and perfume but of the forest and sweat, a bitter tinge of blood and something spicy which is entirely his own. He’s strong beneath Daryl’s hands, all angles, but he’s also smiling into the kiss, eyes bright and clear when they break for air.

Daryl remembers his name. And doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it either.

Their foreheads press together, blond hair mixing with brown. Benjamin’s green eyes seem black now that his pupils are blown wide.

‘Hey, bright eyes,’ Daryl murmurs against his lips before he can stop himself.

‘Hey, gorgeous.’

Daryl snorts, bowing down to rest his head against Benjamin’s collarbone again. A hand strokes through his hair, runs down his neck only to start again. He arches into the touch.

A voice from upstairs breaks the moment.

‘Dinner’s ready, guys!’

‘Thanks Tara,’ Benjamin answers after a soft sigh, ‘we’ll be right up!’

Daryl pushes himself away from the table and out of Benjamin’s embrace. He can still feel the other guy on his skin, taste him on his tongue.

Benjamin hops down and goes back to the couches, where most of his stuff is now littering the table. He picks out a dark red shirt. He takes a couple of seconds to adjust his belt, inspecting the gun there and checking whether his knife is secure. ‘Ready?’

‘Nice shirt.’

He laughs, ‘I thought you’d like the color.’

They climb up the balcony together, Daryl hopping over seconds after his friend. The whole group is gathered in the biggest office. They find a spot near the windows, their arms brushing as Benjamin reaches down to kiss Maggie on her forehead in greeting.

Rick is standing near the fire, arms crossed. He looks pensive. When Daryl settles in the windowsill, he meets the hunter’s eye.

‘We’re leaving.’


	15. Why?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Enjoy!

 

* * *

 

 

The silence between them is suffocating. Moonlight spills through the glass-in-lead windows, pale colors ghost over the walls, only fading when clouds slide across the night sky, obscuring the moon from their sights. The temperature is high enough for Daryl to shrug out of his vest and only wear one of his shirts, the sleeves cut off.

When he sits up to throw the vest onto the table, he can see Benjamin’s outline in the dark. The younger man is on his couch, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes glint when he blinks.

There are too many things they’re not saying.

 _We’re leaving._ I’m staying _. Tomorrow._ Seven months. _I’m glad you came back._ Me too. _I waited for you._ I came back to you.

‘Try to get some sleep,’ Daryl says in the darkness.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Can’t stay awake forever.’

‘Watch me.’

Daryl folds one arm under his head and bites back the _I am_. Even in the twilight, Benjamin’s hair is shockingly bright. It’s currently a mess of half-formed curls, one side sticking up while he lazily cards his lean fingers through the other part.

‘ _Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear_. Stephen King,’ the younger man says, stretching, army boots kicking his arm rest. ‘I didn’t even stop to see if they would be friendly. I just lured them out into the forest and killed them.’

‘You didn’t have a choice.’

‘Maybe they had kids.’

‘You had Carl with ya. Same thing.’

‘It’s not,’ Benjamin says softly. ‘You know it’s not.’

‘It could be.’

The blond tilts his head to the side so he can look at the hunter. Daryl is pretty sure the shadows hide his face. His eyes are too small to catch the light anyway, but Benjamin still smiles at his outline.

‘Could be, but you’re leaving. And I’m not.’

 Daryl closes his eyes and sighs. ‘You think your sis wanted you to rot away in some library?’

‘I didn’t rot before, won’t rot now.’

‘Seven months. Winter, snow,’ Daryl yawns, ‘don’t think I’d forgotten.’

Benjamin hums and turns to his side. ‘Okay. Fine. Heart to heart. You ready?’

‘What? Yeah, shoot.’

‘If I’m going with you, I’m going to fall in love with you.’

‘Thought you said this wasn’t a deal with the devil,’ Daryl snarks even though the words cause his chest to feel too small and tight. A heat that’s not soothing, though not frightening either, claws at his heart and up his throat.

‘I’m serious.’

‘Okay. So you’re not in love with me now?’

Benjamin thinks that over for a minute. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, you mean more to me than anyone alive right now, so that’s something…’

‘But not a whole lot. Everyone you knew is dead.’

‘Hmm, yeah, pretty much. I’m kinda in high-school love with you, know what I mean? The whole weak-in-the-knees and desperately-wanting-to-make-out kinda love, but,’ he laughs in the dark, ‘well, we’re not cubicle, dog, fourth of July barbeques yet.’

‘Thank fuck for that.’

‘I’m serious,’ Benjamin repeats even though his voice is filled with laughter. ‘What about you then? Are you in love with me?’

‘No.’

There’s a beat of silence.

‘Auch!’ Benjamin laughs when Daryl doesn’t continue, ‘you’re supposed to say: but I really do like you and that thing with your tongue you did? I kinda love that, so-‘

‘Stop.’

The pale light of the moon makes the blond’s grin flash in the darkness.

Daryl listens to the sounds of the library. The creaking of the chandeliers above them, the soft noises his family makes on the second floor, the wind which cuts through the boarded-up windows, Benjamin’s breathing.

He gets up. And sits down on his friend’s couch.

Benjamin looks up to him with slightly raised eyebrows. ‘’s up? Came to say goodbye? We could be all dramatic about it, you know, you riding away on the bike, me standing on the rooftop, waving. I might even cry, for show, you know? Adds tension.’

‘You’re fuckin’ annoyin’.’

‘Eh?’

‘You’re fucking annoying,’ Daryl repeats as if the other man really hadn’t heard. ‘And I’m going to get sick of you talkin’ all day, every day. And one day, you’re going to get sick of me not sayin’ a damn thing. It will happen before we ever even reach the damn cubicle, dog, barbeque stage, lemme tell ya.’

‘That pessimism of yours is going to bug me as well.’

‘That endless optimism of yours? It’s going to make we want to string myself up.’

‘Sometimes when you’re thinking you do this thing with your thumb? Like, you bite it? It’s distracting as fuck. For real, it’s so annoying,’ Benjamin grins, one hand rubbing Daryl’s leg absent-mindedly.

‘You make me laugh ten times a day,’ Daryl says, ‘it’s exhaustin’.’

‘I’m kind of in love with the face you make when you’re trying not to laugh, though. That! That face!’

Daryl bites back a grin before rummaging through the pockets of his jeans and pulling a rumpled package of cigarettes out. The flame of his lighter illuminates his face for a second as he leans close, hand curled around his precious flame and nicotine to protect it from the breeze.

‘Seven minutes,’ Benjamin murmurs, hand warm on Daryl’s leg, resting just above his knee.

‘Stop.’ Daryl inhales and blows the smoke away from them, rubbing at the back of his neck. ‘Shut your eyes, try to get some sleep. You look like death.’

Benjamin snorts, ‘you’re so sweet.’ But he still shifts to his side, curling up around the other man. ‘Did you already pack your bag?’

‘Don’t have a lot of shit. We loaded the cars up with food an’ water.’

‘Saved me some?’

‘’Course.’

‘Good.’

The words become slurred with sleep as Benjamin starts to slip away. His hand slide away from Daryl, moving to rest below his own chin, fingers touching his nose and lower lip, twitching in his dreams. It makes Daryl think that Benjamin, when he was just a kid, used to suck his thumb; the posture so familiar and comforting.

He smokes his cigarette while watching his friend. Ash falls on the floor between his boots. What he said is all true, of course. They’re going to get sick of each other and it’s going to end in heart-break, death, and possibly both at the same time. Nothing lasts now.

Rick and Lori. Hershel and his wife. Bob and Sasha. Carol and Ed. Hell, not even bonds of blood. Not him and Merle. Nor Beth and Maggie. Sasha and Tyreese.

So what the hell is the point?

Three more months of Benjamin’s laughter in his ears? Four more months of stupid stories and ridiculous memoirs? Seven months before they’re sick of each other?

The filter of his cigarette falls to the floor. He crushes it with the heel of his boot.

 

 

‘The fuck are you doing?’ Benjamin asks as he cracks his eyes open the following morning. He raises himself to his elbows, yawning before watching blearily how Daryl moves around the large space, throwing various objects into a black backpack. ‘What time is it?’

‘Time to get up,’ Daryl grunts as he throws the bag to his friend, who’s not awake enough to actually catch the damn thing. He flails, clumsy hands slipping over fabric until the heavy object knocks the wind out of him.

‘Jesus, Daryl, there are nicer ways to wake me up.’

‘I’m fixin’ to go get the bike. Hurry up, we’re leavin’.’

‘We?’ Benjamin asks as he rubs at his eyes.

‘Yeah. Get up. You’re coming with,’ Daryl says. He halts for a second, hands on his own backpack and eyes wary.

The blond sits up, recognizing that the black backpack is in fact his. He looks around the room. It seems almost empty without their clothes strewn around. A couple of dirty shirts still litter the table, but most of his clothes are neatly folded and stacked in his bag.

 ‘Why?’ he asks.

‘’Cause you’re good walker-bait, all right?’ the hunter snaps, throwing his bag onto his back.

‘Daryl.’

‘Need me to spell it out for you? You’re coming. Now get off your lazy ass, I done told you twice already. Rosita’s got breakfast for you, the rest have cleared out the last provisions. Every last thing. So stay and starve, or get up.’

Benjamin runs a hand through his hair, smoothing it out. He blinks, glancing around the room with a soft sigh. Then he looks up again, brow furrowed. ‘How many books do you think fit in the back of the car?’

Daryl snorts, ‘none. Pick a favorite and shut up.’

‘A _favorite_?’ Benjamin repeats, scandalized.

‘Not this shit again. _Get up_.’

‘I hate the way you disrespect my books,’ Benjamin mutters. And then gets up.

 

 

The house feels different, though nothing has changed.

He walks through it, trying to memorize the outline. He walks over shattered picture frames, the glass crunching beneath his boots. There’s dust and pieces of wood, stuffing, furniture. Dust and grass has blown in through the broken window, the curtains dance when the wind plays with them. Bloodstains on the floorboards cause his knuckles to hurt, remembering past pain and heartache.

He needs to give the backdoor a good kick in order to open it.

The backyard is starting to overgrow. Wild plants sneak between the tiles of the path leading down to the shed. Everything is wet with dew, but it’s serene in a way unlike any place else in this world.

The grave is still clearly visible. A patch of dirt, now smoothed over by the wind. The wild flowers he’d picked last time he’d visited are starting to rot.

He kicks them out of the way before sitting down on the grass.

There’s nothing he can say. He doesn’t want to either, because everything he’d say _, I miss you, love you, wish you were here_ , is too obvious and wouldn’t change a thing. Instead, he turns the dog-tags over and over in his hands.

He just sits there, thinking about the sister he’s lost, their parents on the other side of the country, the friends he’ll never see again, the strangers who passed away.

He misses the old world. The one where his main concerns were paying the rent of his shitty apartment, the endless tests he’d had to pass, whether to reheat pizza for dinner or go out instead. The one where he could call the people he missed, tell them about the trouble his mouth got him into this week, listen to the stories of their lives.

It’s all gone.

The house and library had been his sanctuary. The only places in this mad world which allowed him to worry about how to make a campfire without glancing over his shoulder for walkers every ten seconds. He’d even attempted to pick his old life back up by dying his hair again, finding clothes which he would have worn before everything went to hell.

But soon, that too will be gone.

The road, to him, means nothing but gunfire, bites and death.

It terrifies him.

The sound of approaching cars causes his heartrate to jump. Bile rises in his throat, his fingers shake due to nerves. He swallows hard. The cars stop in front of the house. The engines are killed. He can hear some people getting out.

He gets up and brushes dirt off his jeans. A lingering look at the grave, then the sky, and then he’s off.

A quick jog through the shattered remains of the house leads him to the porch.

Three cars are lined up at the curb. Rick is leaning against the first one at the driver’s side. Carl is sitting in the back with Michonne, Judith curled up against his shoulder.

Daryl’s bike is parked on the sidewalk. He’s leaning against it, arms folded and a shuttered look on his face. The small eyes follow Benjamin’s movement as the blond man walks down the set of stairs and then over to the hunter. ‘Ya good?’ he asks softly.

‘Terrified.’ Benjamin fiddles with the black baseball cap that’s clipped to his belt.

‘Why?’

‘This is all I know,’ the blond says. ‘The library, this town. The last time that I was out on the road, I cried the whole damn time. I decided to toughen up, but I’m not sure I have. Maybe I’ll just crack and lose my mind.’

‘Ya think ya’re sane now?’ Daryl asks with a raised eyebrow.

‘Asshole,’ Benjamin laughs and aims a kick at the hunter’s boots. ‘It feels a bit like kindergarten, too. Or the first day of school. Are they going to like me? Am I going to have friends? Can’t bribe them with food and water anymore after this.’

‘If Carol tells me she likes you one more time, I’m gonna puke.’

‘She’s very kind.’ Benjamin nods. He look out over the town. ‘You were right. She’s good people.’

‘They all are.’

‘I know.’ The blond nods a little, gripping the straps of his backpack. ‘What happens,’ he asks, ‘when you grow tired of me? I’m not an idiot. This is fifty-fifty, isn’t it? Make or break? Hell, we’re not even at the dog stage yet.’

‘Thought it was a package deal? Dog, cubicle, barbeque?’

‘Yeah, but I suddenly remembered that thing people used to say; only date someone when you’d be willing to own a dog with them. That sort of messes up the order, ‘cause, you know… People share barbeques sometimes, but, owning a dog is, like, exclusive. You don’t lend your dog to your neighbor, or something.’ He glances at Daryl. The tips of his ears grow red.

Daryl frowns to hide his smile, ‘what the fuck are you tryin’ to say?’

Benjamin seems to steal himself. ‘That I don’t want to share my dog.’

‘You callin’ me a dog?’

‘No! _No_! Jesus Christ, this one cluster-fuck of a conversation we’re having. No.’ He laughs, wiping a hand over his face. ‘I’m trying to say this; the road fucking terrifies me and I’m scared that you will change your mind somewhere midway and that Rick will tie me to a fucking tree and leave me there.’ He hesitates for a second, ‘and, you know, if we’d still have it, I’d probably change my Facebook status, you know, to, err, let everyone know.’

Daryl frowns.

‘You wouldn’t have to!’ Benjamin hastens to add, ‘it wouldn’t be – I mean, I would like people to know that I’m unavailable. And I guess I’d like you to be, you know, unavailable, but, we wouldn’t have to be… Fuck me. I want to be exclusive, okay? And I’m okay with keeping it between us, like, you know, all the...’ He waves his hand vaguely at his friend. ‘I just- I don’t want you kissing other people, okay. Just me.’

Daryl snorts and searches his pockets for a cigarette. He lights it, letting the smoke rush through his lungs and roll over his lips. ‘Ya think I just go ‘round kissin’ people? That it?’

‘What? No! I didn’t-‘

‘Ya think I’m some kind of skank?’

‘Daryl! _No_! That’s not – I didn’t mean –‘

The hunter grins around his cigarette.

Benjamin, mouth open and eyes wide, stares at him for a second. He closes his mouth with an audible click, ‘you asshole! Jesus. I thought you were mad as hell!’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Is it impossible for us to have a normal conversation? This is totally on you, by the way. God, I’m sweating. You scared the shit out of me!’

Daryl picks a bit of tobacco from his lip. He smirks, ‘did ya really just ask me if I wanna be all _Facebook official_? What are you? Twelve?’

‘Fuck you,’ Benjamin says, blushing fiercely, ‘Stop smirking. My poor heart. Just – let’s just forget about all of this, okay? This is _humiliating_. I just made an idiot out of myself. Great.’

The hunter snorts, ‘yeah, ya did.’

A car door slams behind them. They both look over their shoulders to see Rick coming up the garden path. Daryl tenses.

‘We’ve got to get a move on, we’re losing light,’ Rick says. ‘Want to do the honors, Daryl?’

‘Nah,’ the hunter spits on the ground and nods at Benjamin, ‘he’s all yours.’

The sheriff nods and pulls his gun out. He advances on Benjamin.

‘What’re you-‘ The hard look on Rick’s face causes the blond man to stumble back, hands up in surrender as the python is aimed at his forehead. ‘Jesus, put it away, man!’

‘Shut up.’ Rick grabs his shoulder and throws him onto the ground, planting a foot on his sternum.

Benjamin groans when his back hits the road. He glances up at Daryl, who’s looking on, face impassive.

‘Eyes on me,’ Rick says, pressing his foot down for a second. The gun is right in Benjamin’s face. ‘How many walkers have you killed?’

‘What the fuck,’ Benjamin groans, hand going to the back of his head, mussing the blond hair as he searches for blood. There is none. ‘What the- how many? Like, fuck, I- I don’t know!’

‘How many?’ Rick demands, kneeling down now and pressing the barrel of his gun against his friend’s forehead.

‘Many! Like, I don’t know! A hundred, maybe? Who the fuck counts their kills these days? That’s sick, man. Seriously, you need help, wait – do _you_ know how many you’ve killed?’

‘How many people have you killed?’

‘ _People_?’ Benjamin stares up at the former sheriff, ‘I- I don’t... I mean… five, I guess, just the ones who came into town yesterday but- I don’t know. Maybe some more back at the train, but I was busy saving my own ass and shooting blind, don’t think I actually hit them. Just watched them gun down about a hundred people, man, I didn’t exactly stop and see what I was aiming at that moment. Or what I was hitting!’ The gun is pushed harder into his skin, ‘five! Damn, _five_!’

Rick slowly cocks the gun, thumb on the hammer and his finger curling around the trigger. He stares down at Benjamin.

‘Why?’

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos, and everyone who has read this work.
> 
> The boys will be back in the next part of the Things Unattempted Yet series; 'The Road'.


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